


The Smallest Things

by follyofyouth



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Aperture Backstory, Drama, F/M, Gen, human!fic, pre-GLaDOS Aperture, pre-core humans, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follyofyouth/pseuds/follyofyouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days leading up to GLaDOS's final activation, Aperture's employees try to balance their work and personal lives, while battling the growing sense that something is horribly amiss.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Pre-game fic. Contains occasional, marked homophobic and sexual assault triggers, as well as triggers for abuse/neglect. Later chapters may include allusions to sex and, given the nature of the Portal backstory, will involve death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

_"Let me tell it again."_

_"You can't change the ending."_

_"Not this time, anyway."_

[December 2002]

Coughing. There's the sound of coughing everywhere, mingled with the noise of the vent fans kicking in. Doug Rattmann groans. He's never liked this project, and it's not for the reasons everyone keeps throwing around. No, he doesn't like the feeling that something will be able to forever track him, and yes, the very concept makes him squirm a bit more than it necessarily should. His real problem, though, is that the damned thing keeps trying to kill them all.

Not that he can blame it, really. It's Aperture's worst kept secret -well, second worst kept after the astronaut affair in the 60s- that its essence, the core of its core, is Caroline and that obtaining her cooperation took less in the way of sweet words and flowers, and more in the way of big burly men in jumpsuits. The process was crude and what had transferred was neither her warmth nor her kindness, but her untethered fury. At least, that's what Wheat says.

Wheat, rather, James Wheatley, his friend and office mate, sits hunched over the keyboard, wrist against his mouth, waiting for the cough to subside. Tall and thin, it makes the hacking that much more visually striking. "So," he manages, accent softening the words' meaning, "that makes how many times she's tried to kill the whole lot of us?"

Doug holds up three fingers, prevented from any sort of verbal answer by his own renewed coughing fit.

"Guess third time isn't always the charm."

Doug shrugs. "For her, at least."

"It, mate. It."

He shakes his head. "Something doesn't feel right about this. Who programs a machine to kill on activation?"

Wheat's quiet for a second, thinking. "Who designed the turrets? Because I think they count, and whoever invented them should, therefore, be your answer."

"Mad men. The same kind building this thing."

"There's no need to go projectin'," a third voice chimes in. Richard, their unfortunate byproduct of office space reduction, will never be described as intelligent, and seldom, if ever, as tactful. Boorish by nature, his assimilation into their tiny clump of cubicles has gone anything but well; from his constant stream of self-aggrandizing babble to his incessant assertions of superior masculinity, Rick, the party associate, has thus far proven himself to be the oft-rumored "office mate from hell."

He also insists upon attempting to ingratiate himself with every female staff member in the facility.

"Multisyllabic words, I'm impressed," Wheat drawls. "I'd've thought that beyond your neanderthal-like processing capabilities."

"Says the lily-livered egghead who chickened outta a few simple tests."

"I did  _not_  chicken out. I was  _given_  an exemption."

"Only sissies need exemptions," Rick asserts, puffing out his chest. "I ain't no sissy."

"You-"

"Wheat," Doug interjects, knowing virtually anything about to come from his friend's mouth will lack the intended vitriol. "Not worth it."

"What do you…"

"Wheat, unarmed in a battle of wits." For a behavioral scientist, his friend is impressively adept at missing social cues, even the seemingly obvious. It has the unintended effect of creating an air of idiocy around the other man, undermining otherwise good insights.

"Yeah, unarmed against these babies," Rick growls, flexing his arms.

Doug chokes on a laugh; Wheat buries his head in his hands as the computer in front of him lets out a puff of dust and promptly shuts down. "You broke it. It couldn't listen to your drivel anymore. It just … It died! You bloody broke it."

"The only thing I break, egghead, is lady hearts."

"Egghead … egghead…" Wheat mumbles, gathering the now-defunct machine in his arms. "Bloody idiot. Can't even come up with something original." Straightening, he turns his attention to Doug. "I'm, er, going to get this fixed. Or replaced. I'm not sure which yet."

"Get what fixed?" Evy. Of course, it would be her turn for an entrance.

"Well, hello, gorgeous," Rick purrs.

"Wheat's computer's shot again," Doug says. "Says your boyfriend broke it."

"I said-!"

"Oh, come on," she says, facing Wheat. "I may not have high standards, but even they're higher than  _him._ "

Evy Anders, the engineer they'd wanted in-office, is smart, warm, and pretty in a nondescript sort of way. Famous for being a third-generation Aperture employee - and for having had both her grandfather and parents killed in freak science-related on the job accidents when she was young- she's the least amused by the current state of things, constantly sending out CVs and constantly being rejected due to her current place of employment.

"What even happened to it?" She asks, pointing to the computer in Wheat's arms. "Did it 'blue screen of death' on you?"

"I wish it'd had given me the courtesy. Puff'a dust and it was gone."

She shakes her head. "Let me take a look."

Handing her the defunct machine, Wheat goes to lean against his desk, near the spot Evy claims for herself.

"What happened down there, Evy?" Doug asks.

She shrugs, pulling a set of jeweler's screw drivers from her lab coat pocket. "Exactly what happens everytime the system's powered up. Before anyone can react, the whole place fogs up with neurotoxin and it's a scramble for the killswitch. What I want to know is why no one's disconnected it from the neurotoxin control circuits."

"That's it?" Wheat asks. "This whole situation and that's  _all_  you're wondering about? I'm shocked."

"Hey!" She grins up at him. "In response to the first point, it's not the  _only_  thing. As to the second, remember that I'm fixing this," she adds. "Anyway, it came closer to getting the neurotoxin to capacity than it has before. Made getting to the kill circuit considerably harder."

There's a moment of silence as the words sink in. The corridors of Aperture have always seemed to breed a sense of doom and foreboding, but to know that death lurked so near is a different matter. The computer in Evy's lap clicks, then whirs; the battery indicator LED flickers to life as she screws a compartment door back on.

Rick breaks the silence. "Sounds like you need a big, strong man down there, angel."

Doug turns around, staring at the party associate and finding himself at a loss for words. He tries to keep an open mind, tries to remember that he's in no place to judge and that a scientist ranks the same with an engineer ranks the same with a support staff member. Most days, the issue fails to rear its head; Aperture may not be the best of companies, but the people working under its logo are overwhelmingly dedicated, smart, and competent. In the presence of Rick, however, this all falls away, leaving him to wonder why there's not a mandatory minimum IQ for employment.

"Do you actually think about what comes out of your mouth? Or is it just unfiltered stream-of-consciousness?" Wheat asks. "Because if there's a thought process, I think you're really someone to be studied."

"Dissected, even," mutters Evy.

"You got that right, slim. I  _am_  something else."

Standing, she hands Wheat the computer, then smoothes down an imagined wrinkle in her shirt. Her mannerisms always seem off around Wheat, a fact that never fails to make Doug chuckle or set his workmate on the defensive, tumbling over his Bristolian burr.

"There's a meeting later," Evy starts. "About what's next in trying to prevent another attempt."

"Kill the project," Doug offers. "Something's not right about it."

"Can't. It's Aperture's sole source of funding," Wheat says. "It's what's paying our salaries."

"How do you know that?" Asks the engineer. "Has something gone public?"

Wheat grins. "People ought to keep their data better encrypted."

"What do you - Oh."

Doug laughs, distracted by Wheat's unacknowledged extracurriculars. How a behavioral scientist had developed a knowledge, let alone an understanding, of Aperture's garbled code is a mystery, but his friend's aptitude is undeniable. It's saved them a number of time now, extending deadlines, shortening waits between paychecks, and on one occasion, opening a door into the maintenance area. "When's the meeting, Evy?"

"Fifteen minutes in the south auditorium. Full team."

"So, half-an-hour in some dinky conference room with the full team," clarifies Wheat.

She nods. "I'll see you both there. In the meantime," she sighs, "I've got two dozen e-mails to respond to about decorations for tomorrow's festivities. Two. Dozen."

Wheat grimaces in sympathy. Doug wishes her luck. She's out the door, halfway down the corridor when Wheat half-hangs himself out the door. "Ev!" She turns. "Thanks."

Evy waves and keeps walking.

* * *

An hour-and-a-half later, in the second-to-smallest conference room in the facility, eighty scientists and engineers in white coats and bright shirts pack themselves against peeling yellow walls. At the front, an aging television hooked up to a VCR plays CC-TV footage of the activation. Contrasted with their current surroundings, the device's chamber strikes the assembled group as foreign, almost alien i its newness. Doug's stomach lurches as the green clouds flood the screen, obscuring all but the hulking machine. The blinking white light to the side of the yellow iris is a new addition, hurriedly half-explained to be a core by the project development head whose name Doug and Wheat can never remember. He doesn't see fit to explain, however, what the core does.

"Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling," whispers Wheat, earning him a gentle elbow to the ribs from Evy.

"Shall I say I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises through the pipes?" Doug mutters in response.

"It's like living with Wilfred and Thomas," Evy muses, feigning annoyance. "Except  _they_  wouldn't chatter so much."

"Being dead might help with that, luv," Wheat suggests."Can't really do a lot of chatting if you're dead."

The video fades to static as the lights come on. Reactions vary from the bored to the blanched to the beleaguered. A recording of old Cave Johnson admonishes them; it's always an admonishment, never praise. If it weren't followed by Caroline's chirpy "This has been a pre-recorded message," the near-constant barrage would have quickly demoralized any new addition to the team.

Not that such an event had occurred in the past five years.

"As you can clearly see," the project head starts, "the addition of the core delayed the deployment of neurotoxin by one-twenty-fourth of a picosecond. Ladies and gentlemen, a breakthrough has been made."

"When did one-twenty-fourth of a picosecond become a breakthrough?" Evy asks.

"When it became the first successful stall measure, Ms … what is your name, again?"

"Honestly, now," Wheat mutters. "Five years. You think he'd have the bloody courtesy to learn names," Wheat mutters. "Death!" He calls out. "She's Ms. Death! Her scythe's just at the cleaners."

"Ahh, Dr. Wheatley," the other man half-purrs. "I see you've decided to participate today. Do you have anything substantive to contribute?"

Shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Wheat fidgets for an instant before finding the words. "Actually, I do. This … these cores, they aren't a solution; they're a patch. Sort of like band aids. They give us time, but don't address the crux of the issue. The human …" he pauses, unsure of how to refer to the woman whose horror story eventually passes the lips of every Aperture employee.

"Dr. Wheatley?"

"The human model on whose personality and brain structure the AI was based possessed some unknown or undocumented condition or trait that's causing this. There had to have been an abnormality … or .. or -"

"Dr. Wheatley," the head sighs," your presence on this project remains a mystery. Your so-called insights are, once again incorrect."

"How do you know?" Doug calls from the floor. "No one else can explain her behavior."

"Dr. Rattmann, our other delinquent loon. I suggest you separate your reality from that of everyone else. The GLaDOS project is an artificial intelligence development. We're not babysitting an infant."

"Sir," someone else ventures, "how are we going to create these cores? The main core was ported from a volunteer and the secondary core from a child's game."

"Ah, finally, a real contribution! Men and women of Aperture, we have always sought and will always seek challenges The task before us is this : to create and implement a more efficient human-core port system."

"Where are we going to get the models?" Evy asks, fingers circling Doug's wrist, silently pleading with him to keep quiet as he jittery knee bangs the same message against Wheat's. "Are we planning to return to recruiting from the outside?"

"A fair question. Cores will be created from employees who volunteer for a shot at immortality."

"Volunteer or  _volunteer_?" Wheat presses. Panicked, Evy treads lightly on his foot, trying to make him shut his mouth.

"I have no idea what you're talking about Dr. Wheatley."

Doug's blood runs cold.

* * *

Two days and seventy emails in Evy's inbox later, the Aperture Science Non-Denominational Holiday Event lights up a conference room on the upper floor of the facility. Tinny holiday cheer warbles from the PA system, jerry-rigged into a giant music box by a few engineers. Cups of fruit punch, spiked well in advance, decorate plastic-cloth-covered tables in lieu of any kind of flower. The silver science tree, an Aperture tradition since 1956, stands against a dark corner, its near-barren branches festooned with molecular models of old Aperture products. Small children dart around as parents make small talk and feign nonchalance on the subject of the company's mass production of deadly neurotoxin.

A man, middle-aged and balding, holds the hand of a small girl; no more than eight, with her hair swept high into a ponytail, she stands silent, eyes sweeping back and forth across the room. The adults, her father's coworkers, are of little interest to her. Their pretty clothes can't mask the boredom of science that she's sure runs through their words, just as it does her dad's. Shaking her hand free, she wanders off, curious to see if anything of interest ever happens under these meters of cement.

Wandering among the forest of hips and legs, she sees Daddy's friend Doug at a table with the lady with the toys on her desk and a tall man with glasses who she doesn't know. They're laughing and she can't help but wonder if it's at some stupid science joke. Daddy's friends almost always think they're funny, but only Doug ever is. Well, sometimes. It depends a lot on whether or not he's talking at all.

She scrambles up to a seat at their table before he can spy her, hoping to catch the joke. Even if it is a lame science one, it has to be better than listening to the plain old science talk of every other adult in the room.

Doug's eyes sweep over her as soon as he notices the noise of the chair. They get along well; they share a mutual distrust of doctors and needles, a fondness for cake and the big companion cubes that the vents drop forth, and the belief that her father is a little crazy. "Chell," he starts," aren't you supposed to be with your dad?"

She nods, settling in her chair.

"But you decided to go exploring."

She nods again, a smile forming on her lips. Doug is one of the few adults who get it. Mommy used to, but she's never home, and Dad's only interested when science is involved. Doug, though, he understands everything, she thinks

He sighs, returning the smile. He'd met Henry's daughter he first time she'd gone exploring, having escaped from the daycare. He couldn't see the point in dragging the poor girl back to a place she so obviously wanted no part of; it seemed cruel to him. Instead, he'd brought her back to her father's office, and waited with her until he came back. She'd sat in Evy's desk chair, happily spinning around and, eventually, talking. She'd told him about her school, her family, and her love of puzzles. He remembers telling her to be careful who she said that to in here, remembers the look of absolute confusion it had earned him. He tells himself that she'll learn in time, there's no need to spoil her innocence. Still, her father is the exact kind who have her tested, just to follow Aperture's recommendations. "I guess I should introduce you, huh? That's Wheat," he says, pointing to the taller man across the table. " And that's Evy. They work with your dad and me."

"You're scientists too?" Chell asks.

"I am," Wheat volunteers. "I study people."

"I'm an an engineer. I build gadgets and doohickeys," adds Evy.

"You're working with the Galdys lady too?"

"You mean GLaDOS?" Doug asks, concern beginning to creep into his voice. "What do you know about it?" Under the table, Wheat nudges his leg, reminding him to keep calm.

Chell shakes her head."He keeps saying how she's going to fix everything. I don't think I'm really supposed to hear it," she admits, cheeks flushing. "He usually says it to Mommy. I think it's supposed to be grown-up talk. Sometimes, they yell about her. Who is she anyway?"

"Er," Wheat starts, unsure of how to even begin to answer the question. The simplest answer feels like a lie, but there's no point in scaring a child with the story of how Caroline became a computer and how her body now lies, perfectly preserved, in a stasis pod in the bottom of the facility. He suspects anything enough to scare an adult would scar a child. "GLaDOS is a computer. A very advanced computer, designed to behave like a person."

"It's supposed to help run things," Evy adds, racking her brain for simple concrete details. So many of the project's meetings and plans are speculative, making the task of providing a direct answer to a direct question difficult. "It's kind of like we're building a way to talk to the facility."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"To make life easier. For all of us," a fifth voice answers. Four pairs of eyes turn to Henry, now standing behind the little girl's chair. "Chell, didn't I tell you not to wander off?"

She nods, eyes downcast, but remorseless. It's practiced penitence, learned from one too many adventures obstructed by rules.

"Henry, mate, leave'er be. She's not off in the facility; people aren't working," says Wheat, chin in hand. "She's just here, having a chat."

"It's nice of you to say, James, but we all know her presence here is distracting."

Chell's face crumples.

"She's not a distraction," Doug says, by way of defense. "She's a new face. Something we could all use around here."

"And, in any case," Evy adds, "tomorrow's Christmas Eve, Henry! There's more to life than work."

"Not now there isn't! I'm surprised any of you can  _think_  about anything else." There's a passion to his voice, one Doug's never heard before, not even when Henry brings his wife, or Chell, or his meager list of hobbies outside of work up in conversation. Chell's noticed it too; Doug shoots her a quiet smile to try to cheer her up as Wheat and Evy try to distract her father.

He realizes he's only half been paying attention when Henry scrambles off. Evy's visibly unhappy, half-glaring at Wheat.

"Thanks," she groans. "I really wanted to listen to him wax poetic on disc operating systems. It's not like I wanted to get home at something near a reasonable hour."

"Didn't pick up on my sarcasm," Wheat mutters, pulling his glasses off his face to clean them."How was I supposed to know he'd go and get the bleedin' specs for the project?"

Chell taps Doug's arm. "I thought they liked science?"

"They like other things too," he tells her. "They don't want to talk about science all the time. It gets boring."

"What else do they talk about?" She asks, watching the two other adults banter.

"Life outside of work. Well, if any of us really had one."

"Why don't you?"

It's a good question, Doug admits, one he's not sure he can answer. He knows that, for Evy, at least, Aperture's always been a part of her life, work or not. He's seen pictures of her as a little girl on the shores of Lake Michigan at the Annual Aperture Family Picnic, for crying out loud. And Wheat, Wheat's entire family is a mystery back in some English shore town. He never talks about them, doesn't keep pictures of them, doesn't mention birthdays and spends holidays with other people.

By the time he begins to form words to answer Chell, her father reappears, arms loaded with binders. Evy covers her mouth in what might best be described as horror, and mutters something about chainsaws.

"So," Henry says, winded as he takes a seat. "Where should we begin?"

* * *

Wheat isn't expecting much as he drags himself through Aperture's main foyer the day after Christmas. Still half-asleep despite the bitter Michigan cold, he can think of nothing he wants less than a day of meetings and mandates. He's one of the last in, if the parking situation's to be believed, a suspicion confirmed when he walks into his office to find Doug furiously typing at his computer while Rick languishes in his chair, obviously nursing a hangover. There's a package on his desk, festively topped with an ornate bow.

"Santa stopped by," Doug cracks, not looking up from his screen.

"And she was wearin' some skirt," Rick groans from his seat. "The legs on that woman…"

Wheat ignores the comment, long fingers working at the bow on the package. Evy insists on a great deal of ceremony about everything, presents left on desks included; it's the only reason he can think of for topping any package with a ribbon tied this ornately. Setting the material aside, he slides a thumb under the wrapping paper, breaking the seal of the tape. He's not a fan of messes, or of rushing things; if you're going to do something, you might as well take time and do it properly.

Which seems to have been Evy's thought process in picking his gift. The tea ball, thermos, and canister of what smells to be very good Earl Grey appear to be a combination Christmas present-slash-commentary on the current state of his tea making habits, habits that she berates for having "fallen to the lowly standards of Twinings and PG Tips bags." He chuckles, wondering when the midwestern American replaced him as the tea snob. Brushing a finger over the red ink heart she's drawn on the tail of the y in her name, he sits down and boots up his computer.

It's only then that he notices the orange lava lamp tucked neatly into the corner of Doug's desk.

"Uh, mate -"

"Evy," his friend responds. "She thought the place could use some color. Apparently," he says, turning from the screen, "she's in the 'if it looks better, work won't suck' camp."

"At least she's not meddling in your love life."

"What love life?"

"Y'know, drinks, dating, having it off…"

"Makin' love," Rick grumbles from his chair, failing to catch the Brit's meaning.

"I am, in fact, aware of what it entails, thank you," Doug mutters, engrossed once more with the internal bulletin board system.

"I just ain't sure, egghead," he starts again. "Mean, don't ever see  _you_ with a beautiful woman. Hell, don't see you with any woman."

"What, I don't count anymore?" Evy asks, having entered halfway through the party associate's proclamation.

Wheat looks up at her. "You know, it's right eerie when you just pop out of nowhere."

"But, really, shouldn't you be used to it by now?"

"Hot stuff," Rick starts, drawing Evy's attention back. "You ever gone home with  _that_  guy?"

"Doug or Wheat?"

"Douggie."

"Oh, sure," she smiles. "Bunch of times. Gone home with Wheat, too."

Doug smiles as he catches Rick's reflection in the screen.

"See," she starts, "my car's awful. It breaks all the time. So, those fine gentlemen have given me more rides home than I can count. They're the only people in this whole facility who I'd go home with; can't find better rides."

"So, you're looking for heroic, huh? Well," Rick begins.

"Actually, I believe she's looking for someone with a more reliable car," Wheat corrects, annoyed that Rick's opened his mouth after all.

Rick ignores him, plowing on. "I've got some real heroics, sweet cheeks. Savin' damsels, rescuin' kittens, explorin' like that movie fella. Why don't you call on ole Rick the next time you need a little pick me up."

"In a pickup," Doug mutters.

Evy's gaze bounces among her coworkers. "I had a reason for coming in here, but at this point, I'll just go. I'm not sure what damage has already been done to my intelligence from that speech, but I'm not dedicated enough to science to find out by further exposing myself."

"At least you're not trapped in here with the moron," Wheat offers.

"She's' got her own to deal with," Doug says, turning away from the screen once again. "Every office has an idiot."

" _I_  won that title today," she says, holding up a bandaged finger. "I had a run in with the soldering gun."

"The devil were you soldering?" Wheat asks. "You lot can't possibly have gotten far enough to be building a prototype."

Evy shakes her head. "Modifications to the optic on the original core. We're jury-rigging it into something more functional. It's sort of exciting, really. I like the challenge of it all."

"The real challenge, Ev, is going to be when they lose control of her, and we're left to fight," says Doug, voice grim. "If we even get the chance."

Silence hangs, awkward and filled with more tension than anyone cares to admit. Evy locks her gaze on Wheat's shoes while Doug fidgets at his keyboard.

"You really  _do_ think this job'll do us in, don't you?" Wheat asks, tone sincere.

"I'm sure of it."

* * *

Back in her own office, Evy sits, tired. Rubbing at her eyes, she wonders how at only eleven in the morning, she's already drained. There are any number of factors, not limited to the cold facts of biochemistry and sleep schedules. Though Aperture's science may not be the most valid, it's every bit as stressful as the real McCoy; she thinks it might even be worse, given the fragile financial state of the company. She tries not to focus on it as she logs on, filling out on a computerized timesheet almost on autopilot.

There are days she wonders how she ended up in this job. She knows the facts, certainly; Aperture paid for her education, they expected something back in return. It hadn't seemed so bad when she'd first accepted the money. Back then, she still believed in the talk of her parents' friends, and how it had filled her with wonder:  _Imagine inventing whatever you wanted; complete freedom to explore your curiosity._

She still has to choke back a bitter laugh.

Her curiosity hasn't been entirely beaten out of her, though it takes a vastly different form from the one that drove her so passionately through her college years, and then again through grad school. She could care less about science's role in manipulating natural laws; she'd much rather talk about people, about what's under their skins and the secrets they've shoved in the back of their closets. She readily admits it's perverse, but what do you expect to emerge from so much time spent in a workplace filled to the brimming with security cameras?

The ding of a dialogue box snaps her from her thoughts, alerting her to a problem. She closes out on instinct, assuming a mistyped password or identification number; when it fails a second time, she pauses to actually read the message, then picks up her phone, knowing full well that this means trouble.

When Wheat storms in, glasses too far down his nose to be of any use, Evy realizes he hadn't caught wind of the news and won't be able to give her any new information.

"I can't believe this. I can't bloody fucking believe this," he sputters. "Who … what … do they  _really_  think … No wages. We have no wages coming for the month of December, it's not going to take effect retroactively, and its all for some bloody machine that we can't make work! It's not like I've got gobs of cash just lying around so that when this  _idiotic_  company decided not to pay the lot of us I could just accept it. I didn't set aside enough to pay rent, buy groceries, and still afford working electricity. Sorry if that's my fault; sorry I didn't have the forethought, Aperture. I'll be sure to do that next time."

Evy shakes her head. "They pay's below industry average as it is; Black Mesa's people make at least three times what we do. How do they think we're going to make basic cost of living payments?"

"They know we can't. I'm half-inclined to think it's some trick to shove us into the employee dormitories," he says, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "They'd be able to do away with those inflation-adjustments, while keeping the whole staff. Can't leave if you can't afford a place to live, now, can you?"

"Don't even joke! Can you imagine  _living_  here? You might as well resign and submit yourself as a full-time testing candidate." Just then, the speakers blare to life, requesting a track maintenance associate to chamber nineteen, track A-121. They both grimace: Aperture fatalities are seldom painless.

"No, no, I can't," Wheat says quietly. "Living here … there'd be a day where you just didn't wake up. And you still wouldn't get any peace."

"That'd be if you were lucky."

"They're not about to slaughter the proles."

"Accidents happen, Wheat."

He grimaces at her, at a loss for what to say, what to do. She's the first to announce that she has only fleeting impressions of the family she's lost, but there's still something garish about ignoring that she  _has_  lost family here. Evy's not the only one, he's sure; just the only one he knows of.

It's not something he can relate to, not even the vaguest details. His ties are long severed. He hasn't seen his brother in fifteen years, his mother in almost seventeen. He doesn't even think of his father anymore. He made his choice; he lives with it. And that's what it was: a choice. Evy's circumstances are a casualty of chance and negligence; she's had no say.

"It won't come to that," he asserts, trying to head off his thoughts.

"I'd move back in with my grandmother before I moved here."

"I  _knew_ you missed the forty minute commute!"

She laughs. "My mornings feel so empty with all the extra time I have."

"No more shaving a few minutes off the work day."

"No more hope of being fired."

"Reckon you're trapped with us for a bit longer, love."

"Suppose I am."

* * *

The days drift by, blurred by routines and alarm bells and rants that won't follow their creator to the afterlife. Doug watches it pass, an unending stream of test subjects, code, and grey antiseptic halls. He counts seven fatalities on the tracks, four truly perverse comments from Rick, and eleven coding errors. The machine hangs silent, dead eyes staring out across a room of ants, all crawling around in coats of white. The snow, already five feet thick, blocks out the pathetic beams of sun that once pooled into Aperture, forcing the entire facility into a permanent gloom.

The heat sputters off the day before New Year's Eve, leaving people scrambling for workspace in abandoned testing tracks, the last heated areas that might possibly be called safe. Testing is suspended as the observation chambers are deemed too cold for proper notes to be taken on test subject performance; hot plates become handwarmers and bunsen burners tiny impromptu campfires. Still, the damage is done, and half the facility's staff ends up sick for the holiday.

Doug tries to be mad, he really does. It's unsafe, and the cold keeps any real work from being done; he's had to actually interact with Rick for lack of adequate finger mobility to work from his laptop. If it hadn't been for the testing tracks, they would have ended up dead from hypothermia. He's not sure Aperture has the funds to even repair the system, and it's not as if the company keeps an HVAC team on staff.

Despite that, he can only manage moderate disgust.

It helps, he admits, that he's now happily situated in a bar with a working heating system, two tipsy friends, and hot food. It's late, almost midnight, and they're deep in the trenches of Aperture gossip.

"I've heard he's got a bondage … thing," Evy confides, conspiratorially staring over her daiquiri. "And he likes the bottom," she adds in a half-giggled whisper.

Wheat nearly loses the sip of beer he's just taken, struggling to swallow. "Thank you, Evelyn, for that lovely thought."

"It's her revenge for the tech specs lecture you subjected her to last week," Doug offers .

"What? How was I supposed to know Henry was going to do that?"

"Because his devotion to GLaDOS borders on the fetishistic."

Evy screws up her face. "How would you even … you can't  _fuck_  a computer!"

Unfortunately, it comes out louder than she'd meant, drawing the attention of the bar's remaining patrons to the small table. Evy giggles, half-ducking behind Doug.

He looks down at her, amused. "You're drunk."

She just nods.

"Yknow, I think we're thinking small. I mean, sure, you can't have any sort of  _proper_  sex, but she has got wires and…" Wheat trails off, waggling his eyebrows.

In retrospect, Doug will pinpoint this comment as the one that nearly ends Evy in his lap in a vain attempt to hide the crimson color her cheeks have flushed; though she is lovely and sweet, there are few places Doug wants her less than in his personal space. His manic pantomime across the small table seems to do the trick, as Wheat pulls Evy back.

"Thank you," Doug mouths. Wheat shrugs as Evy instead settles herself against him, her prior embarrassment now mostly overcome.

"Really," Wheat starts, "I think we've stumbled upon the only thing Aperture  _hasn't_  programmed it to do."

"You think Aperture should turn her into a murderous AI with a sex drive?"

"It's not like you can try to kill someone if you're havin' a shag."

"Where there's processing power, there's the possibility of death."

"You," Wheat says, pointing at his friend, "just need a bit more fun."

"And a bit less neurotoxin."

"I dunno…" Wheat trails off. "Think fun might rank higher."

Evy leans across the table, blowing out the candle in the tiny glass votive at its center, then settles back, pleased.

"Ev," Doug starts. "That's not a birthday candle. You can't wish on it."

"I already made the wish. And it's New Year's Eve. And what do you know? You're a programmer, not the … the … grand poobah of wishes."

That sets them all off on a fit of laughter, doubled over the table. By the time Wheat has enough control to check his watch, it's already 12:01.

"Happy New Year, you lot!"

Evy throws her arms around his neck as he clinks glasses with Doug.

"Happy New Year to you, too."

 


	2. Two

_"How did you know it was her?"_

_"I didn't."_

_"Then why choose her?"_

_"Because I believed in her."_

[January 2003]

For a few days, they're left to their own devices. Evy wanders in and out, always taking her leave as Rick makes his entrance. He's begun to notice, calling after her as she breezes out the door and down the hall.

Hours spent in the observation chambers alternate between horrifically dull and simply horrific. Wheat wonders what it says about them all that watching a corpse liquefy in acidic goo, which once elicited muffled screams, now only draws the odd gasp, shielded eye, or sympathetic hiss. He wonders when the line between unspeakable horror and everyday atrocity was drawn and when it was crossed. He doesn't like to think of himself as a calloused, heartless bastard, but can't shake the fear it's exactly what he's becoming.

He could bring it out, dredge it up from the darker places and lay it on the table. It might help him sleep better at nights, take some of the guilt away from hundreds of rubber stamped intake interviews. Sometimes, he half-expects to find himself gone mad, washing his hands of invisible blood.

He tries not to think about it.

* * *

There's a meeting scheduled in the afternoon one day early in the month, and water cooler chatter has it that it's the sort of meeting you're fired for missing. Tension weighs down on the facility as rumors fly about what could possibly be so important. They only fly faster when it's announced that the meeting is exclusively for the GLaDOS project team members.

Evy watches the others file in, grim faced, at the appointed time. The company's financial woes have never resulted in layoffs, only reductions in safety measures and increases in mandatory employee enrichment participation. She's sure they're about to lose their exemption, and from the looks of it, so is everyone else.

Instead, the project head announces that all involved are about to be thrown into the most intense period of work they have ever experienced. Doug leans over to Wheat and offers hushed commentary on dissertations and memory loss, on how he can't stand hyperbole.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is our moonshot," the man proclaims. "This will put Aperture on the map, and catapult us into the history books."

"Sir," Evy asks," aren't we already _in_ the history books?"

The director pointedly ignores her, refusing to acknowledge Aperture's past with missing astronauts and the United States Senate.

"Engineers," he continues,"I want a new core built and functional within the next two weeks. Cog sci, get a presentation ready with where what is in the brain, emphasis on personality centers versus speech versus decision-making. Tech-med, you already have your assignment."

Doug catches Wheat's eye, trying to see if his own concern is out of place; the set of his friend's jaw and wrinkling of his brow impart more about a mutual sense of unease than words ever could.

"Our goal is to create a simpler, more streamlined process, and to begin testing it by month's end. It is our hope that this new transfer procedure will be less damaging than previous attempts, but that is not, I repeat, not a priority, people. Science has always demanded sacrifice; this is no different."

The meager color in Wheat's face drains. He's never been one for poking around in people's heads; eight years of lecture have taught him that the human brain is far too intricate, and far too delicate to be wantonly poked and prodded for any cause. It's one of his few tightly held positions, one of the few topics he believes condones a raised voice and the lobbing of expletives. In his mind, and in his experience, it's simple: the human brain is not to be meddled with. To do so is to ask for unintended consequences, none of them positive.

On the way back to the offices, Evy walks sandwiched between the two men, uncharacteristically quiet. She's nonplussed by the words of their boss; she maintains that Aperture never has put risk-minimization or safety as priorities, so to have it outwardly declared is hardly shocking. She's far more disturbed by what's been left unsaid. Tech-med's responsible for the creation and refinement of the transfer technology; their progress has always been foggy at best, but their directives have always been public. The sudden secrecy's enough to give her pause; the scenarios she's concocted are enough to send her running for an exit door. When Wheat's fingers brush against hers, it's all she can do not to grab his hand.

Eventually, she leaves them, instead padding back to her office, sneakers virtually silent against the metal catwalks. Neil looks up as she enters, guilt coloring his cheeks.

"Porn?" She asks, having seen the very same look play across Rick's features.

"For space geeks," he replies, spinning his monitor around to reveal a brilliantly colored nebula.

She smiles, his enthusiasm muting her annoyance. Neil's one of the few poor souls accepted into Aperture's internship program; the first in his family to go to college, he's sweet, in a goofy sort of way. It had taken her a few days to get him to open up beyond nervous mumbling, and a few more to convince him that mistakes were not grounds for being chucked off the catwalk, no matter what anyone else had told him. His child-like enthusiasm for the subject, as well as his single-minded goal to find a place at NASA, continually remind Evy why she keeps an eye on him; guileless little boys don't belong unattended at Aperture Science, especially when they have larger, better things on the horizon.

"Well, space-boy," she begins, tone warm, "I hate to interrupt you, but we just got saddled with big work."

"More modifications?"

"Try a whole new core."

"How long?"

"Two weeks, maximum."

He gapes at her, trying to form a response.

"Yeah," she nods. "Big work."

"I think I'm going to be sick," he squeaks, wringing his hands. "Two weeks?

She nods, again. "We're responsible for the optic; remember the modifications we made on the first one? They want that built on."

He sucks in his lip, thinking. "We could have it rotate in its case, couldn't we? I mean, that way, it would give it the ability to look at you, to track objects."

"We'd have to create an internal motor, and some sort of piston system."

"Is it do-able?" He asks, big brown eyes gazing into hers.

She casts her gaze downwards, trying to visualize how they'll need to start. She nods eventually, slow and, maybe, a little unsure. "We'll have to invent it."

He grins at her. "Perfect."

She looks up at him, confused. There are innumerable words to describe their situation, but she can't count 'perfect' among them. She arches her eyebrows at him, looking for some kind of clarification.

"Inventing's why you got into this business in the first place, right?"

She offers him a quiet huff of air and a small smile. It's funny to her, funny and sad, that despite a meager difference in years, she feels eons older than Neil. There are days she expects to look up, and find her eyes in the face of someone in their fifties, sixties even; her thirty years feel too young.

"Yeah," she exhales. "It is."

* * *

Wheat can feel the vein in his temple pulsing, blood coursing through the passages under his skin at an abnormally high pressure. It's cause is no mystery; Rick is terrible on his own, but allowed near Craig, and his boorish crass ways only shine through with a greater intensity.

Of course, the whole thing is exacerbated by the pile of paper that's just been thrown at him. It's Aperture's latest emergency contact, medical, and insurance forms, all to be filled out in triplicate, all wanting information he wouldn't share with even his closest confidantes.

Gnawing at the cap of his pen, he tries to drown out the squabbling in the background. Craig, his colleague on the cognitive team, is every bit as obnoxious as Rick, albeit in very different ways; when put in proximity of one another, the ensuing insults and jabs and petty jibes are enough to make anyone wish for a tranquilizer gun. Others joke about them like some cheesy romantic comedy couple; in truth, Wheat's never seen two people hate each other more.

After what happened with his father, that's saying a lot.

He turns the mess back over in his head as he sifts through the packet, striking out questions about next of kin. It had all happened so quickly; though really, he should have seen it coming from the get-go. He was always the odd one out in his family, always the one who everyone said no one could count on in the business. His father had never smiled at his scholastic achievements, never offered a word of praise for high marks; it was always some gruff, half-intelligible spitting of sounds. Still, he didn't expect things to play the way they did.

Fathers aren't supposed to throw you out when you get into Oxford. Fathers aren't supposed to tell you that they don't want a thing to do with your scrawny arse and your big ideas. They're supposed to pat you on the shoulder, brag about you to their friends, send you off with a bag and pencils, and bore you to death with stories about _their_ university years. They're not meant to chuck you out into the cold with a jumper and a bag of whatever you could grab from the cupboard of the room you shared with your brother.

But that's what happened.

To his father's credit, he _had_ given him a choice: waste your life away or leave. True, it had been a crap choice, one that guaranteed him loss and regret, but it had been a choice. For that, Wheat supposes he should be thankful, should _show some fucking gratitude to the God who put you on this Earth_ , as his father would say. Absently, he rubs at his cheek, where the specter of his father's hand still stings.

His mother had watched, sat there at the table and let it happen. She'd sipped her tea and nibbled on her scone and just watched. If he tries, Wheat can still set the fire of indignation burning in his stomach; hadn't she promised him her support? Hadn't she encouraged him to apply? Hadn't she made him tomato soup when he was ill and read him bedtime stories as a little boy? Hadn't she?

He shakes his head, scrawling in an "N/A" on the line for family's home phone number.

He'll deny scrubbing his eyes as he slammed the door of the only home he'd ever known, deny worrying at his lip until it bled, deny ringing the phone time and time again after he'd gotten to his Aunt Flora's. He'll joke about piecing together what he needed, about the nightmare that was moving in alone, and about the unyielding burden of debt he doubts he'll ever be able to pay off.

He is not worried about dying alone. He tells himself that more he announces it to others, the more likely it will eventually be true.

The clang of metal against metal as Rick knocks a chair over to stand in Craig's face barely registers.

His graduation had been without frills, without pomp or circumstance. Wheat's not even sure he has pictures. After all, it had just been another stepping stone. Three years in, and that's all his education had become: a way out. Another year, another degree. No cards. Four years for a doctorate, a thesis, job applications. He can downplay his panic now, but he remembers nights spent alone with cups of tea and receipts, furiously calculating and recalculating what he could do without, and what he would have to do without, and whether it would be enough to pay the damn loans.

He jots down his landlady's phone number when asked for an emergency contact.

And then along came Aperture and a US visa and a country where it didn't matter that he was the boy who'd traded his family for three pieces of paper, and couldn't even fully bring himself to regret it. They'd help with the loans, help him with the residency papers, and help find him his apartment; all they'd wanted in return, he'd find out, was his soul.

There are days he fears he really will die here, days when Doug and Evy's nightmares don't seem so far fetched. There are days he fears he will die here, and no one will care.

He caps the pen, and looks up to find Craig screaming in Rick's face. _Huh._ He hadn't noticed.

Wheat just wants to be remembered.

* * *

Doug stays late that night, hunched over this keyboard, scribbling furiously into a notebook. He knows his gut isn't lying to him, that other people are as worried as he is. He knows that whatever Aperture does, it won't be enough. He knows they can't beat her, not now.

He's responding the only way he can: with an escape plan.

Aperture's massive. Its abandoned past reaches six kilometers into the earth. Even relegated to the still-functioning topmost two kilometers, it's still a gargantuan tangle of of labyrinths and passages, secret rooms and hidden staircases. There are no less than fifty-five routes out from the building.

Doug intends to learn them all.

He figures that the first step is to find out what the layout looks like, floor by floor, and get it down somewhere secure, somewhere the activity monitoring software can't access. Then, it's a matter of testing the routes to determine which are the most viable. From there, it's rote memorization.

It had sounded so simple, so feasible, until he got hold of the schematics. The jumbled, fragmented plans have taken him hours to isolate, juxtapose, and composite into a single set of maps, one for each floor. Hunching over, he transcribes them into a simple black book, completely nondescript.

He swears he feels his heart stop at the sound of a sneeze. He watched Rick and Wheat pack up hours ago. Evy popped her head in shortly thereafter to say goodnight. There's no one else he talks to socially, no one else who would be coming by for a friendly chat. Doug turns slowly, expecting Henry or worse.

Chell stands in the doorway, swaddled in an orange coat, two sizes too large, looking sheepish.

Doug sighs, relieved. "Aren't you here a little late?"

She nods, and it's then that he notices the redness in her eyes, the sniffle she's trying to suppress. "Mom had a conference. Dad was supposed to go. He didn't. She dropped me off here with him."

Doug nods. Chell sucks on her lip, then starts again. "He got mad. Said I was a nuisance. Told me to get out. So, I did. Sorry if I'm a nuisance to you too."

He offers her a smile. "Hardly, you just startled me is all."

She whispers an apology.

He shakes his head, the silent brush off welcomed with a warm smile. Doug motions for her to come in, to stay awhile. Chell is good company and a good warning system; naturally wary of those she hasn't been introduced to, she'll reliably call his attention to any unwelcome visitor.

Still, he sets asides his notes, instead pulling a pack of dry-erase markers from his desk. Ordinarily, they're for working through formulas, re-running code, and troubleshooting. On special occasions, though, they serve a far more useful purpose.

Offering the open box to the tiny girl, he watches her gingerly uncap one of the markers and set its tip to the board. He follows suit, frazzled nerves beginning to uncoil. Drawing on the whiteboard is always his last last resort, the final block to throw up in front of a breakdown. Everyone has one. Evy goes screaming in soundproof chambers; Wheat paces the catwalks. Doug doesn't know what Rick does, but then again, he doesn't want to. _You can't survive in a place like this without some kind of coping mechanism_ , he tells himself. _You'd go completely mad_.

She draws squares at first: simple and clean-cut. After the first four, Doug taps her on the shoulder, and with a few extra lines, transforms them in cubes. He spends the next few minutes teaching her the magic trick.

She runs with them, cubes from all sides, cubes from all angles. She picks her colors carefully, the way some artists might when drawing people. There are big cubes, little cubes, all across the board and in every color. She begins drawing faces on them, then pulls Doug's sleeve, encouraging him to follow suit. It isn't long before the cubes sprout arms and legs, marching across the bottom and up the side.

It almost reminds Doug of those old Disney cartoons in all their technicolor glory.

The board becomes their world. Trees and houses spring up as the white fades away. He picks Chell up to scribble over old notes and formulas, then adds in more elaborate buildings in wild colors, uninhibited by the adult folly of good taste.

They sign their names in a corner, refusing to leave their work orphaned. When Henry arrives to collect Chell, their art fails to escape his notice. Glancing across it with a mixture of scorn and disbelief, he turns to Doug, and asks how he could waste such precious time on such pointless endeavors.

Doug has to bite back the urge to tell him that, in the face of death, life is just a string of pointless endeavors, some more meaningful than others. He manages a comment about fun and children and not turning a cold shoulder. Henry walks off, unimpressed, dragging Chell behind him.

* * *

Evy comes back from lunch the next day to find an envelope on her desk, emblazoned with a stork and bundle, addressed to an "Evelyn and James." There's a brief moment where she stares, dumbstruck, unaccustomed to seeing her full name and Wheat's real name written out; it's followed by mild panic that the envelope's addressed to the both of them, the way you'd send something to a couple. Shaking her head, she sets off across the catwalks to Wheat and Doug's.

She's not really sure how to broach it. It's not that she and Wheat have a history; they've never been a _thing._ There will be no awkward ghosts of dates past. There's just a good, close friendship and a certain lack of regard on her part for personal space. And a history of accidents and run-ins and other things that might appear suspicious, like falling on top of each other. And then there's her proclivity for stealing his cardigan and his complacency with it, despite a strong tendency to keep things close. No, there will be no awkward ghosts of dates past, just the awkward specter of false appearances and, in her case, poorly concealed desires.

She has no idea what to do.

They're talking when she pokes her head in, though work's obviously not the topic of conversation. She thinks it has something to do with one of their co-workers, but she can't actually be sure. For all she knows, it could be one of Doug's neighbors.

Wheat spots her first. "The cad's out. You're safe to come in."

She grins, stepping in. "Ahh, free to lollygag without fear of sexual harassment."

"But not fanatics," Doug tacks on. "Henry's already been in here a twice."

Evy shrugs, hoping she's somewhat masked her discomfort. "I've got news."

"What is it?" Wheat asks.

_Just get it over with,_ she thinks. _If you dwell on it anymore, it's just going to make this worse._ "Apparently, we're dating."

Doug bursts out into rare peals of laughter, as Wheat's cheeks color. Evy can't make eye contact with either of them as she drops the invitation in Wheat's lap. She suspects her cheeks match her lipstick, but there's nothing she can do now.

"Oh …. erm … ah … well … then," Wheat says, obviously experiencing the same loss for words as Evy. "What's this then?"

"Kerry in accounting's having a baby shower," Doug answers, holding up his own copy of the invitation. He pauses to catch his breath between chuckles. "Whoever's organizing it must've thought you two were a couple."

Evy runs her hand through her hair, fascinated with the floor, while Wheat tries vainly to form words.

"Look at it this way," Doug says, laughter beginning to subside. "At least you only have to buy one present."

"Presents? Who's buyin' presents?" Rick asks, stopping short behind Evy. "Hello, angelcakes," he purrs.

She whirls to face him, eyes wide. "Oh god. I'm leaving now." Darting out, she tries not to consider the exchange.

Rick barely has time to ask what just happened before she's back, color absent from her face.

"Got scared at the thought of leavin' ole Rick?"

"What's wrong?" Wheat asks, finally looking her in the eye.

"There's …" she swallows. "There's a body. In the vent. Outside."

"I'll go check for the tube number," Doug offers, standing.

Evy crosses the room, settling onto the couch against the office's far wall. "This fucking day…"

Rick's comment is cut short by Wheat's glare.

* * *

The buzzing of saws and shattering of glass fills the air for the next half hour.

* * *

Hours later, they find a stray companion cube on the catwalk, displaced by the shattering of the diversity vent. Doug doesn't remember who suggested using it as furniture, but it isn't long before they're dragging it past Rick into the office proper.

"Guess this means we're moving up in the world," Wheat jokes. "We don't just get a corpse, but a coffee table to go with it."

Evy scrubs it clean three times, never satisfied.

* * *

Days run into nights as the employees of Aperture scramble to finish their projects. Dinner becomes a communal activity once more for Wheat, as he and the rest of the cognitive team split orders of take-out Italian and Chinese while finishing the presentation. The engineers lock themselves away, coming out rarely; the looming deadline has rendered them frantic. Rumor has it that they've created a core that can look at you, a core whose optic can track your voice.

On the day of the meeting, the conference rooms seethes with a nervous energy, more fear than excitement. No one wants to imagine the consequences of a job not done to satisfaction, not when Aperture is in such dire straits financially.

Evy chirps anxiously, wringing her hands and fretting about last minute design changes to the motor she should have made. Her mind spits forth an infinite number of what-ifs, worst cases, and odd questions, all of which come tumbling out of her mouth, unfettered and unfiltered.

Neil tried to reassure her. She thinks, in his own warped way, Rick did too. But now, now she's trapped in her head, with her words bubbling out of her mouth, and no one's got a word of advice, of comfort.

Sometimes, she hates her field.

Pulling at the hem of her shirt, she's too disturbed by the content of the cog team's presentation to pay much attention to it. She can't catch Doug's eye, and the flustered look of Wheat prevents her from trying for his. Curling in on herself, she tries to think of a life outside Aperture; she's disturbed to discover she can't.

Before her panic has time to mount any higher, the head of the engineering unit is stepping up, bringing forth a rolling cart with the core mounted on it. She sinks her fingers into her palm, chipped dirty nails sinking into her too-warm flesh. The optic body, sandwiched between two stationary plates like a sideways sandwich, rotates in a complete circle, forwards and back, but its horizontal motion range is severely limited. Evy doubts its extraordinary sturdiness will compensate, should the project head and the nameless, faceless higher-ups decide that a full range of view is their true priority.

It's switched on before she can notice and the programming works and there are applause and, just vaguely, she feels like she's going to die. There's no relief, only the insistent feeling that this won't be enough, that they'll have to improve. She hasn't dreamt since the last meeting, and while it's a petty complaint, Evy can't help but think it speaks about the effect of the company on its employees.

"Excuse me," someone starts. With a jolt of panic, Evy realizes it's Henry. "But, shouldn't we give the machines some reason to follow orders, and some deterrent from rejecting them?"

"I think that's called their programming," someone else answers. Murmurs of agreement echo off aged walls.

"No, no, hear me out," Henry starts again. "We're talking about possibly building sentient cores, like GLaDOS. The humans from which their programming will be built, you and me, well, we work for pleasure. We avoid pain. Why shouldn't we build machines to do the same?"

The director's eyebrows shoot up; he's obviously intrigued.

"There has to be a way to include the pain and pleasure responses in the cores. We can add in the pleasure response for GLaDOS; we have the human model's complete neurophysiological map. I'm sure there's a way to go back in an add the pain as well. We have to give these cores motivation, give them a reason to do the best they can. They can't understand science, so we have to give them something more fundamental to strive for."

"What would you even use as the basis, though?" Someone offers.

"Same thing we use for wasting so much time dating: the human orgasm," he offers, face straight and cheeks uncolored.

The room bubbles over with awkward noises and jostles with uncomfortable fidgets. It seems, at first, that no one has the words to respond, that no one knows what to think of such an idea. Sex for manipulation is nothing new, they all know, but still, it seems wrong to imbue a machine with such feelings, such needs. It transgresses a line they were never previously aware of.

"And for pain?" Someone else asks, voice timid.

"We'll run tests, determine what's the worst someone can experience and survive. There are lots of test subjects; why not use them?"

"But how will you replicate it when creating the personality base?"

"That's why it's so important the test subjects survive."

"It's genius!" The director exclaims. "Dr. Renard, I'd like you to start devising a test battery this afternoon."

Evy can't help but feel like their fates are somehow sealed.

* * *

That night, and for the rest of the nights that week, Doug stays late. Hand-drawn maps in hand, he begins his tour of the facility's lesser-known-routes. He finds four viable exit strategies, eight paths to the maintenance areas, and one route blocked by a vitrification order. He worries he isn't moving fast enough.

He knows he's not alone when he comes in one afternoon to find Wheat staring at the phone, rubbing at his temples.

"Bad news?" Doug asks.

Wheat shakes his head, not meeting his friend's eyes. "Good news, I think."

"You think?"

"After that bit with the not paying us, I looked for other jobs. One of 'em is in England for an Irish firm. I sent everything in." Wheat looks up. "I've got a phone interview tomorrow morning at eight."

"That sounds pretty definitively like good news."

"Job's not open for another five months. Could be out on the streets by then."

"What's Evy's take?"

Wheat looks down at the phone again. "Haven't mentioned it to her."

* * *

For a few days, it's quiet. Things return to normal. The engineers stop scurrying, and start sleeping at nights once more. The air seems to lose some of its menace, though retains its characteristic gloom. Rick's perversions reemerge to torment his officemates. Neil goes back to researching nebulae while Evy tinkers with a drive shaft. The world is quiet.

Until it goes dark.

The blackout will later be deemed inexplicable. It will be referred to as a freak outage, unpredictable, but likely to be a side effect of some experiment. Rumors will fly; funding, sabotage, and rats will all be tossed out for consideration. Doug Rattmann will blame GLaDOS.

However, as the darkness suddenly invades the facility, like ink spilled on paper, the only thought in the heads of Aperture's employees and test subjects is panic. Chell, in with her father on a half-day from school, suddenly attaches herself to Doug's side, four miles in the air. He kneels down, intensely aware of the cavernous space enveloping them. He scoops Chell up, knowing it's the interminable black that's so frightened her. She buries her head against his chest, seeking comfort.

They walk slowly, gingerly. He doesn't jostle her, and she doesn't squirm in his arms. It's a straight shot to the office; it's only a matter of not bumping into anyone else, and of course, not plummeting to their deaths.

Ten feet from the back door in, he catches a patch of light in the corner of his eye, accompanied by a familiar British accent. Pausing, he stops to watch Wheat and Evy mount the stairs. He's calmer, flashlight in hand and feet sturdy, unfazed by the dark, or Evy's grip on his arm. Her face is curiously devoid of color, like she's been given bad news or a bad fright. Doug chalks it up to an effect of the light on the grating, but for a moment, he thinks he sees her legs shaking.

"It's like walking with a Boy Scout," Evy offers, failing to cover her nerves. "The lights go out and he's got a flashlight."

Together, they make their way into the office. Doug sets Chell down on his desk, and promptly begins rummaging through it for another flashlight. Evy and Wheat settle on the couch, both obviously relieved to be off the catwalks, onto sturdier ground, and surprisingly comfortable in the close confines. The two gentle clunks that follow as her shoes hit the floor only solidify that impression.

The speaker, still wired to the auxiliary power system, groans to life. "Just a little power outage, people. It doesn't stop science! Back to work." Another voice follows conveying that "This has been a pre-recorded message."

"Who's that?" Chell asks, as Doug slides the switch forward on his flashlight.

"Cave Johnson," Evy responds. "He built this place."

"Is he in charge?"

"He's dead," Doug offers. "He died a long time ago."

"From what?"

"Depends on who you ask," Wheat adds in, shifting to fit against Evy.

"What do you mean?"

"If you asked anyone who treated him," Evy begins. "It was Mercury poisoning. But, if you asked him, he said it was moon rocks."

"Why would he think something silly like that?" Chell asks. "Moon rocks aren't poisonous."

"It was the mercury," Wheat offers. "It drove him mad."

"Oh," Chell says, suddenly quiet. "That's when the bad things started to happen, right?"

"Bad things?" Doug asks.

Chell's eyes dart around, and she licks her lips. She wonders if it was a secret, if she wasn't supposed to say anything. But now, now it has to come out. "Dad was talking to someone and he was talking about this cook, who they were trying to put into the Glad-lady. They had to drag her off, and she screamed a lot, and it was bad. He said that it was only the beginning, and that sacrifices had to be made. He said the money was gone, but they couldn't let science stop because of it." She pauses. "He was really serious about it."

Doug shudders. He tries to think of comforting to offer, but finds himself devoid of words. He's spared by another of her questions. Having slid off the desk, she seems fascinated by the mock coffee table they've repurposed the Companion Cube into.

"They use it to motivate the test subjects," Wheat answers. "It's kind of like handing them off a pet rock."

She runs her fingers over the stamped pink heart. "I like it." Standing, she darts over to the white board, and grabbing a marker, begins drawing.

In the darkness, no one sees Evy lean her head against Wheat or the way his hand rests on her knee.

"Doug," Evy starts. "You did teach her to play the ultimate time killer, right?"

"…No," Doug answers, realizing his oversight, and inevitable heckling that's about to follow.

"What kind of irresponsible adult are you, man?" Wheat asks. "Sure, you're all for letting the little girl run wild about the facility, but you don't teach her dots? Where are your priorities?"

"Dots?" Chell asks, turning to face the adults.

Doug grabs a spare marker and scribbles out an array on the board, low enough for Chell to reach the entire field. He explains the game quickly enough, and they're off. She loses the first game, and then second, and but by the third, her demeanor's changed. Grey eyes pore over the open spaces, taking minutes to make her move. The fourth game sees her victorious.

* * *

Hours later, with the power restored, Doug sits with Henry in one of observation chambers. Without a doubt, Henry is the most enthusiastic of the partners Doug's regularly paired with; deaths bother him not for their loss of life, but for their impediment of scientific progress. He likes it when the test subjects scream. The more data he can collect, the better.

"Don't you ever wonder what this is all for?" Doug asks, gaze diverted from the deadly chamber. "I mean, what scientific purpose it serves. We're not finding a cure for cancer, or Lou Gehrig's. We're just testing."

"Don't trivialize it, Doug! We're pushing the boundaries of human knowledge."

"But at what cost? And for what use? What are we going to do with the knowledge that people don't solve problems well when flung into the air? And couldn't we have figured that out after five tests, not five thousand?"

"We could have guessed it, but we couldn't have proved it. Doug, I'm surprised at you; you're a smart guy. I thought you of all people would understand that sacrifices have to be made."

"There's a line, though, between a reasonable sacrifice, and the sort of sacrifices Josef Mengele so callously threw around."

"You can't be-"

"We cut people apart because we _could_ in the seventies. We toyed with people's DNA because we _could_ in the fifties. I'm just saying, there's a point where it's not science. It's cruelty. And I'm not sure that we haven't crossed it at some point."

"Say what you want, I have full faith in Aperture; if you're going to have that attitude, you may as well just get out."

"No one you know is out there."

"Not for long; I want Chell tested as soon as possible."

"She's a little girl!"

"Sacrifices, Doug. Sacrifices. Young and valuable aren't mutually exclusive."

* * *

On the last day of the month, they filter into the conference room once again. Standing room only, the meeting's attracted more of Aperture's staff than anyone could have predicted. Rumors, rumors that bear Chell's fragment of a story out in more detail, have penetrated the ranks of the staff. Everyone not otherwise assigned to an observation chamber anxiously shuffles and shifts into the conference room.

The director stands at the side of a cart, covered by a drape, beaming. Henry looks as if he might fall over from the way his chest is puffed out. Wheat won't make eye contact with anyone, instead staring at the floor.

The director clears his throat, and when that doesn't work, he tries again. Realizing he'll need to address the masses more directly, he bellows forth some generic, almost carnie-like line. It does the trick.

"After a month of intense work, I present the latest innovation in core technology from Aperture Science!" He pulls back the cloth with a flourish, revealing a large metal sphere. Reaching around, he flips a switch and it begins to speak.

"…One eighteen-point-two-five ounce packaged chocolate cake mix …one can prepared coconut pecan frosting … three-slash-four cups vegetable oil …"

"The knowledge core!" The director exclaims. "It's monotonous repetition is thought to be soothing, like a thunderstorm or a badly-taught history lecture. It is our hope that it will calm whatever in the GLaDOS intelligence is causing the neurotoxin release."

The room erupts into applause, with a few exceptions. Evy scoots towards the door, hoping to remain unnoticed. She's halfway down the hall by the time Doug's noticed she's gone. Elbowing Wheat, he motions towards the door, seeing the utility in the engineer's early exit.

His friend's silence in the face of such hoopla is conspicuous, to say the least. "Bad news about the job?"

Wheat shakes his head. "No, no … Interview was fine. It's things here that aren't right."

"They haven't ever been right."

Wheat shakes his head again. "You remember Chell's story, yeah? And I'm taking it you've heard the rumors."

Doug nods.

"Well, they're accurate. The transfer didn't just go badly; it went catastrophically. With the system operating in safe parameters, it did major damage."

"Where's the body?" Doug interjects, expecting the next sentence to involve the grizzly death of the poor person uploaded.

"In storage."

Doug stops short, though Wheat keeps walking. "Since when does Aperture put corpses in storage?"

"Never said she died."

"Then-"

"Major brain damage. Irreversible vegetative state. Means they have to refine the technology. Take more subjects."

There's an edge to Wheat's voice, a harshness that's out of character, to say the least; Doug can't say whether it's fear, loathing, or something else entirely.

"So, what do we do?"

"You could be Aperture's next Nobel prize winner for figuring that one out."

Doug watches his friend walk down the catwalks, and can't help but feel like the timeline on his plan has just gotten dramatically shorter.


	3. Three

**(This chapter contains homophobic remarks, and sexual assault triggers. If either of these are an issue for you, you might want to skip the argument between Rick and Craig.)**

* * *

_"So, it was just that easy?"_

_"What?"_

_"Finding her? Making sure she was what you thought?"_

_"Nothing is that easy. This was Aperture Science, remember."_

[February 2003]

Doug is jumpy; it's the first thing Evy notices when she runs into him in the halls one early February morning. He's also extraordinarily disheveled. His lab coat's wrinkled, his shirt is untucked, and she's fairly certain he hasn't combed his hair. He looks like a lunatic.

"Did you go home last night?" She asks, eyes worried.

Doug knows what she's really asking; he doesn't blame her. "Have the meds here, Ev. Have had'em here from day one."

She relaxes a little, allows herself to fuss with his hair and straighten his tie. "I can't believe you spent the night here."

He shrugs it off, soft lines and gentle movements. "Happens. You were here pretty late some nights last month."

She shakes her head. "It's different. I was here and so was every other engineer on the GLaDOS team."

"Hey," he starts, tease obvious in his voice. "I don't always work alone."

"You're as bad a liar as Wheat," she smiles.

"Or maybe you just know me too well."

She arches her eyebrows, trying to look mysterious, but when her gaze meets Doug's, she collapses into giggles.

Doug shakes his head, amused. "Come on, we might as well get going."

"Hm…?"

"They're testing the machine again, and I don't like the idea of collapsing onto concrete when I don't have to."

"Always such a ray of sunshine."

"Always."

* * *

Doug does not get to spend the activation test in his office. He very nearly spends it in the annex with the phone, uselessly attempting to dial the extension to the killswitch operator after being unceremoniously drafted for the job by Henry.

_"Oh, come on, Doug. It's just one time."_

_"It only takes one fatal dose to kill you."_

_"Why are you so sure it won't work?"_

_"Because picoseconds are not a breakthrough."_

_"Sacrifices have to be made, Doug. Besides, wouldn't you hate to miss the first real true successful activation?"_

_"No."_

_"You're just saying that. Come down. We need a phone operator, and you're the quickest person I can grab."_

_"And if I don't?"_

_"I wouldn't."_

Doug shakes off the memory, grateful he was able to pawn the job off on a late arrival. Now, he stands alone on the catwalks, watching the glass of the office cubicles.

* * *

A hundred yards over and sixty feet up, Wheat sits, trying to explain the deficit in his college experience to Evy.

"I just … never played it. I worked when I needed cash."

"Well, so did I," she responds. "But I wasn't above playing poker for a quick forty bucks."

"There's nothing wrong with it! I just -"

"You don't know how to play, do you?"

"No; I mean, I've been meaning to learn, but just. It hasn't happened yet."

The warning bells start early as the system powers up.

"Here we go …" Evy mutters.

"Deep breaths," Wheat reminds her. "Never know how long you'll have to hold it for."

She mutters something about a sick sense of humor, but scoots the chair she's commandeered from Doug's desk closer to him.

His hands find hers as the gas fills the room.

* * *

Outside, Doug stands in awe, watching a thousand glass windows fog green. He thinks he can see hands against the panes, but he can't be sure.

Then, the ventilation system kicks on and the gas recedes: spared from death once again.

* * *

Evy's grip hasn't loosened on Wheat's hands, which he takes to mean he's not clutching at a corpse. He can make out the sounds of her coughing over his own, reassuring in its own way. He reaches across to brush the hair back from her cheek, and finds his hand comes back wet. He brushes a thumb across the same patch, trying to convey with actions what words can't.

They've both been through GLaDOS activation tests before, at least five of them. While they invariably find each other in the aftermath, it's always surrounded by others. He's almost never the one to break the unspoken barrier of touch; it's not in his nature Then again, she's not the sort to clutch at anyone's hands.

"I think," she manages between coughs. "We deserve." More coughs. "Hazard pay."

Wheat squeezes her hands as his own coughing fit renews itself.

* * *

From his position on the floor of the hallway, Rick watches, smiling to himself.

* * *

Doug makes his way back to the office through the maintenance area, ascending and descending stairs and turning corners, almost in a stupor. He thought nothing could be worse than being trapped as the room flooded with the lethal green vapor; he realizes now that he was wrong, that his scope was laughably small and embarrassingly self-centered.

He knows people in the offices. He knows the families of people in the offices. His friends are in the offices. And every time the gas billows through the delivery system and into the concrete and glass cubes, they're sitting ducks. And he's just watched it happen. There are, he decides, in fact, far worse places to be than in the milieu of the neurotoxin.

* * *

The meeting that afternoon is surprisingly, disturbingly calm. No one with any authority seems at all perturbed by the utter failure of the core to buy them even an additional picosecond of time. No one seems at all bothered by the swirling rumors of the chef.

Evy's wrapped in Wheat's cardigan, whole body still shaking from the the occasional cough. She never handles colds well, let alone noxious gas; something about the chemicals her mother was exposed to while pregnant. Doug shoots her a worried look out of the corner of his eye. There's a fine line between a respiratory system impaired from birth and serious toxin-induced damage, but he's not quite sure _where_ that line is. She simply flips him a thumbs up another coughing fit erupts, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.

The project head rambles on, blathering about technicalities and funding, face scrunched into a mask of displeasure. It changes suddenly as he announces that he has something exciting to share. "Starting today, we are accepting volunteers to test our core transfer technology."

"Sir," Evy starts.

Panicked, Doug digs his elbow into Wheat's side. Wheat's look would be venomous, were it nor for the genuine fear in his friend's eyes. Instead, he leans over to Evy and whispers something in her ear that catches the words in her throat.

"Yes, Ms. … er, Miss?"

She swallows, shaken. "N-nevermind."

"Well, then. Moving on. We'll be taking volunteers beginning this afternoon. Sign ups will be posted outside my office."

Evy shudders, leaning back against the wall.

"Will we be comped?" Someone asks. "I mean, it could take us off the job for a day or two, at least in theory."

The director shakes his head. "I'm afraid not, hence, the process is completely voluntary."

"Is it safe?" Another voice queries.

"Science always has risks."

"Yeah, but is it safe?"

"We'll find out, won't we? In any case, engineers, we're going to need another core. I think we were all really pleased with your last effort, but we all agree you could do better. I'd like two new cores, more expressive than the one currently installed, by month's end."

Wheat eyes over the room, watching as the engineering team dons masks of panic and frustration. He hears someone mutter about all this and the lack of pay being enough to make working for the other guys look like a good plan. Doug is scribbling something down in a notebook; _probably some coding reminder,_ Wheat thinks. _Though, he does look a bit harried for that to be the thing._

Satisfied with his assessment, he turns to Evy. He can't tell if it's the light, the news or the neurotoxin, but she's somehow looks smaller, more fragile. He shoves it aside as a byproduct of winter and exhaustion, of the light playing dirty pool. Eventually though, he spits forth a diagnosis: overexposure to Aperture Science.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, and they're gathered once again in Doug and Wheat's office, this time joined by Rick and Craig. Doug doesn't remember how Craig weaseled in, but makes a mental note to avoid a repeat occurrence at all costs. It's not that he can't work over chatter; rather, it's not that he can't work over external chatter, because god knows _that's_ easier to ignore than his own fractured internal buzzing. No, it's not the noise, or the number of people they've crowded into their workspace, or even the sheer insanity that seems to be the accepted norm among the higher ups.

It's the shouting that really gets to him. And, of course, the shouting is an inevitable byproduct of Rick and Craig being within twenty feet of each other, so cramming them together in a fifteen-by-eight office is not really an optimal situation.

He doesn't remember how this fight started, but then again, he can never remember how any Rick-Craig showdown starts. All he _does_ know is that all this shouting is making it increasingly hard to concentrate.

"Yeah, egghead, you keep telling' yourself that!" Rick bellows, face red. "Just keep saying' that!"

"I'm not about to shy from the truth because you can't process it!"

"Jesus, you two," Evy mutters from the couch.

"What is it about your truth I can't process?"

"You were a mistake; no one with your intellectual turpitude could have possibly been conceived as anything _other_ than a mistake!"

"Intellectual turpitude?" Wheat mouths in Doug's direction. He's met with a shrug. Craig's needlessly wordy insults barely register after this many years.

"Yeah, and what makes you so sure your momma's so thrilled with you?"

"I don't go around assaulting women!"

Wheat's tea nearly comes out his nose. The clicking of Doug's keys comes to an abrupt halt. Evy's calculator slips out of her hand, onto the floor with a seemingly deafening thud.

"What did you just say?" Rick growls.

There are not many things truly secret at Aperture, only things that remain largely unspoken of. They've been unofficially relegated to the burn box of memory for any number of reasons: convenience, contempt, conscience, to name a few. Among those ghosts, those words that simmer but never come to a boil, the ones that so rarely find their way out, is the story of Rick's sister, the party, and the boy. It's a story that was mostly told through the papers, through tiny clippings about the court dates and the testimony, the lawyers and the verdict. The grapevine teemed with how Rick had stormed off, crossed the state until he'd ended up in Ann Arbor and how, when he'd gotten there, he'd had to spend hours promising his sister he'd kill the creep if he came near her again, but that he wouldn't have to do that if she'd take the stand.

It curiously hushed up what he'd done to the boy's brother, and the mysterious circumstances under which he was able to escape battery charges, but broadcast unfettered the message that Rick was not a man to be toyed with.

"I said I don't go around assaulting women."

Evy catches Wheat's eye over the top of Doug's head. _Did he really just say that?_

Wheat's eyes dart down to his own paperwork, then back up to meet hers. _He did._

_Doesn't he know?_ She cocks her head, eyes wide.

Wheat shoots her a look over the rim of his glasses. _Doesn't everyone?_

Rick steps forward, cold and calculating. The transformation's disturbing. Believing a braggart when he compares himself to a coiled spring is usually folly; not this time. Doug remains resolutely fixated on his computer screen, unwilling to bear witness to whatever's about to happen. He listens to Evy scramble to her feet, already expecting the need for an intervention, and the way Wheat follows suit. "You're gonna wanna take that back right now."

"Why? I _don't_. I don't go slumming around these halls, bragging to anyone who'll listen about my bedroom prowess, about the women who've slid between my sheets. I don't chase high heels and short skirts."

Rick steps forward again, so he's toe-to-toe and towering over Craig. "No, no, you don't," he purrs. "That's not what gets you hard is it, you sick fuck?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Craig retorts, voice at a monotone.

"Bullshit. I know where the hell you spend your time, and who the hell you spend it with. Tell me, how's it feel to be a cocksucker?"

"I don't. Know what. You're talking about."

"What's it like to be the one gettin' bent over a table like some sissy?"

Craig just stares up at the other man, unflinching. "At least I don't assault women."

Rick leans down to hiss something in the other man's ear, something not meant for public consumption. It's punctuated by a fist to the stomach from Craig, and before anyone can do anything, it's devolved into fisticuffs, with three panicked voices in the background, but no one willing to get in the middle.

It comes to a head with Rick on top of Craig, panting and furious, both bloody. Rick's lip is split open; Craig's eye is swollen shut. Neither seems as if they're about to back down. If anything, Rick seems determined to fracture Craig's jaw.

"Knock it off, you two!" Evy calls from across the room. "It's not going to help anything."

Wheat crosses behind Evy, over to the two men. He yanks Rick off with a surprisingly strong grip, giving Craig enough time to scoot out of the way and, sensing he's lost, pick himself up, and stagger out of the office.

Rick presses his tongue against his lip, and spends the rest of the day glowering. When Craig comes back an hour later, ice pack pressed firmly to his eye, however, the violence nearly erupts again.

"You," Craig spits. "You are going to pay for this,"

"What're you gonna do? Feel me up?"

Craig huffs, and for an instant, Doug worries that once again, someone's going to have to intervene. Instead, Craig turns on his heel, and walks out, ice pack never leaving his face.

The next day, Doug comes in to find Rick's chair knocked over, and his desk in disarray. Pencils and pens lay thrown out from their cup, rolling across the floor. Rick's jacket and lab coat are tossed a few feet off from the door. The dirty coffee cup left on his desk the night before bleeds its contents onto the floor below.

Rick doesn't come back that day.

* * *

"Where's Rick?" Evy asks the next day, after the desk's carnage has been mysteriously straightened.

Wheat shrugs. "Haven't seen him."

* * *

Three days after the fight, and Craig's back in the office, casually sitting at Rick's desk when Wheat comes back from lunch. There's a smug look plastered across his face, a stark contrast to the angry bruise circling his eye. He's uncharacteristically silent, simply watching as Wheat settles back into his desk.

Feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck, Wheat turns to face the other man. "You … you alright there, Craig?"

"Never better," replies the other man, and Wheat swears there's an almost inhuman quality to his voice.

"You, uh, worried about Rick comin' in, finding you there, doing … well, you know?"

"He won't be an issue."

"You sorted it out?"

"In a matter of speaking, justice was served."

"Justice."

"Yeah, justice."

"How'd you-"

"I helped further the cause of science."

Wheat's stomach contracts sharply as the realization sets in. He can feel the hair rising on his arms, and only hopes it doesn't show. He's always known there's been something off about Craig, and it's never been his life outside the office. "You signed him up to be cored?"

Craig licks his lips and grins, bearing his teeth like an animal. "Well, you've heard what Henry says."

"That's barbaric," Wheat retorts. "You know what happened to the chef. For godsakes, you were in the room!"

"Have you ever been beaten?" Craig asks, demeanor an icy calm. "I mean, really, truly beaten. Not a suckerpunch, not a left hook to the jaw, not a knee to the groin. I mean _beaten_? And beaten without a chance to even defend yourself?"

"Yes," Wheat grinds out, reluctant to let any detail slip, and suddenly on his guard.

"Then you should appreciate what I've done. Think of it as … as a symbol. Brains over brawn."

"Forcibly mucking about with the human brain isn't a symbol. It's bloody psychotic."

"See it your way, then. Either way, it happened. I made it happen. I win. And that's a fact."

* * *

Two days later, Craig goes missing.

It's a full week after the fight before Rick returns, the incision on his neck noticeable.

* * *

For the second time in as many months, Evy finds she has the unique ability to fluster her intern simply by walking in on him. This time, though, his space porn's nowhere to be found, replaced by pink hearts and glitter.

"Oh god," she groans. "It's that holiday-that-will-not-be-named, isn't it?"

Neil jumps, awkwardly trying to cover the papers with his hands. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, it's that holiday. Wait, why is it that holiday and not Valentine's Day?"

"Because if you don't talk about evil things, they don't happen."

"What's so evil about love?"

"Sweetie, what you call love was invented by ad men who needed to sell condoms. And greeting cards. And glitter."

"What about chocolate?"

"Believe me, Neil, the chocolate industry didn't need the boost."

"Still, what's so bad about Valentine's Day?"

"It's obnoxious, for one," she starts. "Do you realize how grating it it to watch people parade around, proclaiming 'look, I've found the perfect genetic match for my offspring' when really, they've just found someone who's good in bed? Do you realize how annoying it is to get pitying looks when you go near any sort of candy store, or restaurant, or lingerie store and have to inform people that, no, you're not looking for that special someone? Do you know how many bad Hallmark movies I've had to sit through on account of my grandmother and her fascination with this holiday?"

"…So, this is a bad time to ask if I can have off early this afternoon?"

Evy softens. "You've got a date?"

Neil nods, enthusiastic. "Yeah, and she's great. Really sweet. Big into space."

The eye roll is gentle, the amused tease of an older sister, rather than the caustic mockery of a jealous coworker, set off by the smile pulling at her lips. "Fine. Just … don't tell anyone, okay? And try to get out without making a fuss."

Neil grins at her. "Thanks! So, uh, what are your plans then? You're not going to work late, are you?"

Evy shakes her head. "I've got to run out with Dr. Wheatley, and before you start, it is i _not_ /i a date. There will be no dinner, no dancing, no kissing, no things-that-come-after-kissing. None."

"Then … what _is_ it?"

"You remember the baby shower invitation that came?"

"The one addressed to an 'Evelyn and James'?"

"Yeah. We decided since that we were invited as a single-unit, we only have to bring a single gift."

"And you're going shopping for it _today_?"

"So?"

"Don't you think … don't you think someone's going to mistake the two of you for a 'dinner, dancing, kissing, things-that-come-after-kissing' couple? And you as, you know, uh..."

"You're going to want to seriously reconsider the end of that sentence."

"Yes ma'am."

"Good boy."

A few minutes later, Neil starts again, joking tone gone from his voice. "Uh, boss, I did have a, uh, a question, though. Not about the optics, or anything. I mean, we're close enough to having the second one done and-"

"What is it?"

"Well, there are stories going around about …" His voice drops, barely above a whisper. "About people disappearing. There was a Party Associate who disappeared for a week, and someone on the Cog-Sci team who's still missing." Neil's eyes dart around, almost frantic. "They say he's dead."

"Look," Evy says, voice steely. "Whatever's going on, whatever you hear, ignore it. I'm not telling you it's not true, I'm not telling you things aren't going on. I'm telling you to keep your head down, and as far away from it as possible. Understand?"

Neil nods.

"Good."

* * *

Staring at his watch, Wheat wonders how Evy manages to be late for everything. He wonders if she puts effort forth, or it just comes naturally to her; he suspects it's the latter.

"Is this a developed talent, or in-born?" He shouts as she comes into earshot.

"Is what a talent?"

"This chronic tardiness of yours."

"Well," she calls back, smirk pulling at her lips. "Most of the time, it's all me. But you know, there are those few things that take two to tango."

Wheat shakes his head. "You, little Miss Bloody-Valentines-Day, you're really going to make _those_ sorts of jokes today?"

"You're the one who decided today was the day to go shopping for a shower gift. I'm just preparing you for the barrage of misconceptions we're going to face."

"We're going to be fine. Absolutely fine. Don't know what you're on about."

"You say that now," she intones. "Operative word being 'now'."

"Trust me, Ev."

* * *

It is, of course, not fine. Wheat realizes this as soon as they step foot into the store and are immediately accosted by a saleswoman clad entirely in fuchsia.

"Can I help you two?" She asks, and Wheat swears her voice sounds as if it's been coated in rancid sweetener.

"Uh, yes," Evy starts, rummaging in her bag. "We're looking for … um … a 'Daniella' mobile from … uh … Cocalow?"

"Oh, you're furnishing a nest!" The woman coos. "I should have known. You both looked so nervous when you came in. It is pretty overwhelming. When are you due?"

Watching Evy's face flush, and her lips struggle to form words, Wheat realizes the job of correcting the woman falls to him. "Oh, it's a shower gift. She's, er, we're not … we're just friends."

"Mhmmmm," the woman nods. "Can't fool me, kids. I've been around the block one too many times. There's no shame. There'd be shame if you were getting anything less than the best for your baby, but - come along!"

Evy doesn't realize Wheat's arm around her back until her steers her down an aisle. She wonders how long it's been there, and how she failed to noticed. It's not unpleasant, and in the light of the woman's comments, surprisingly free of social discomfort.

"I look pregnant?" She hisses, trying to get Wheat's attention.

He shakes his head.

"I mean, I haven't put on any mysterious weight lately. Is something poking through my coat? Is my sweater too bulky? Have my years of desk jockeying robbed my spine of its once proud posture?"

"Probably, luv, but that's more about _where_ you jockey than the actual act."

She clucks her tongue, and shakes her head, and tries not be too amazed by the sheer normalcy of the act. This has nothing to do with science or GLaDOS or long, narrow corridors. They're not a cognitive scientist and an electrical engineer; they're two people, two friends, buying a baby shower gift and joking about work.

Even as the woman pulls the box off the shelf and Wheat takes it and they walk towards the register to pay, Evy still can't wrap her head around the idea of doing something so normal. She tries, instead, to think of a normal life, and finds herself drawing mental pictures of houses with picket fences, and children, giant pancakes with ripe blueberries: all the things she'd sworn she'd never want, things she'd written off as cliche.

Not to say that they're any less cliche now. Oh, no, they still stink of old Hallmark cards and Norman Rockwell paintings. It's only that in the face of so many other things, those descriptors have somehow lost their atrocious air and picked up a strange sort of charm.

Briefly, Evy wonders if the exposure to the neurotoxin's done more damage than she realizes. Respiratory damage is one thing, but brain damage is another.

She shakes herself, trying to push the thoughts from her mind. _That's not the path you picked,_ she tells herself. _You knew the consequences. You can't change it, so there's no point in pining for what you'll never get. Besides, what would you do if you_ did _leave? There's not a single place that would take an Aperture-filled resume, and let's get real here, you wouldn't cut it on welfare.  
_

"You alright?" Wheat asks as they walk towards the door.

She nods. "Just a bit chilly."

* * *

Wheat drums his fingers against the table, watching as snow begins to fall outside of the diner's window. He's alone for the moment, Evy having run off to powder her nose. He's left facing the slush pile of wool and knits she left behind, and a menu printed on paper blithely adorned with hot pink hearts.

He had assured the old man at the hostess stand that they weren't a couple, but it had been futile: shoved off into a private corner, Wheat's certain he's in for the worst service of his life, and at the rate Evy's going, he's going to be in for it alone.

He shifts his gaze from the window to the menu, because it seems less pathetic than staring at his friend's overclothes. He notices the scarf neatly folded next to the coat is the one he'd bought her for Christmas last year, the one he'd found in Ann Arbor by chance a week before Thanksgiving when he'd been at the university for a conference.

The car ride had been lonely without her chatter, without her insistence upon music and conversation, without her bags gamely dumped in the trunk. At the time, he'd chalked it up to the simple fact that he _had_ been expecting her. It wasn't until a few days before they were supposed to set off that she came down with the impressive flu that sent her home for a week.

He doesn't remember a thing from the conference, but he remembers every half-cogent conversation he had with her while he was away.

His gaze drops down into his coffee, steam still rising up.

_Evy._

If Wheat's honest with himself - and he does try to be every now and then - it's probably a bit beyond a crush at this point. It was a crush when she was still the new kid, bright and eager eyed with two shining diplomas hanging from a cubicle wall and no idea of what she had gotten into. It was a crush when she'd first been assigned to his observation shift, and they'd spent the time trying to override the more deadly features of the chambers to help the subjects survive. That was years ago.

No, he's fairly certain it's progressed far past a crush at this point.

She's back before he can try to put a name to whatever it is, brushing her hands against the fabric of her jeans and sliding into the seat across from him. "Apparently we're a cute couple."

"I'm sorry?" Wheat sputters, caught off guard.

Evy nods, sipping her milkshake. "Mhmm. 'Cutest couple in the joint,' or so I was told."

Wheat realizes then that she's teasing him, letting him in on the ridiculous things she's heard. She's not read his mind, can't tell the thoughts he's had.

He almost kissed her once. At Christmas, a few years ago. Some cheeky bastard thought it would be a laugh to scatter Mistletoe around the building, always near the security cameras. Thanks to a momentarily lapse of judgement and memory, they'd gotten caught underneath a sprig of the damnable plant; thanks to a particularly cruel twist of fate, it had been at the holiday party.

Rick had been in the room; it had not been pleasant.

He doesn't remember why Evy was wearing a hat, only that she was wearing one, and that when she'd yanked him close by the collar of his shirt to kiss him on the cheek, she'd used it to cover both of their faces. It had spared them both something. It had spared him kissing her. It had spared noises and faces and conversations. It had been fine. That hadn't been the part he'd blown it.

No, that had come later, past the point where they should have gone home to their separate lives. He'd blown it when she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder and he'd brushed the hair off her cheek and she'd looked up at him, in a state that might charitably be called semi-conscious, and asked why they hadn't kissed. And he'd told her that they had, that he had her lipstick smudged on his cheek to prove it. And she'd told him it wasn't a proper kiss, that it was the kind of kiss you gave your cousin or your gran, that a proper kiss was the kind of thing that involved lips and hands. And it was dark and quiet and they were all alone and he could have kissed her.

But he'd swallowed hard and been grateful for the cover and brushed her off. He'd told her she was tired and was talking nonsense.

He's not a moron. He knows how that scene should have gone. He knows he buggered it. And he knows he's not likely to get another chance.

They've never talked about it. He doesn't intend to start now.

They spend dinner making fun of the salespeople as he tries not to notice how close her hand is to his.

* * *

Doug hears the story a few days later, first from Wheat and then again from Evy. It still hasn't lost its humor, and he chuckles even as he makes his way through the dark to his office. While he hesitates to characterize his progress through the facility as anything other than 'on-going,' he admits he's found a number of viable exit routes and more places to hide than he'd considered possible. He refuses to let down his guard, but he does take some comfort in knowing at least fifteen routes to the surface.

His vague quiet happiness evaporates the instant he realizes someone is already in his office, at his desk.

It's not Wheat, and it's not Rick. He's sure of that. Wheat left hours ago with Evy for the baby shower; Rick's left early every day. There's no one else who should have any reason to get in.

Then he spots the oversized orange coat, and his panic begins to subside: Chell.

She jumps when he comes in, obviously already on-edge.

"How'd you get in?" Doug asks, and can only hope his tone's more friendly than accusatory. His temporary panic's completely frazzled his ability to gauge between the two.

"Dad," she says. "Sorry."

Doug shakes his head, though whether it's an effort to reassure Chell or regain his composure remains unclear to them both. "You're here awfully late."

"He said he needed me. Something about science and the Glad lady."

"Did he tell you what?"

She shakes her head. "He took me to this room with this funny equipment and a weird chair with wires, and had me sit down there, and said something about me being too small. He seemed pretty upset about it."

Doug tries to ignore the chill building at the base of his spine, to resist the urge to shudder. "What kind of equipment?"

Chell shrugs. "There were computers. A lot of those. Big lights. And there were big things that dad said held gas. And a lot of things that looked sharp. He told me not to touch anything. And the chair was weird."

"Weird?"

"It was kind of like a dentist's chair, but … there were things to hold your hands. Dad wouldn't tell me why. They were there for your feet too. "

"Chell," Doug starts, swallowing hard. "Can you show me where it was?"

She nods.

"Tonight?"

More nodding.

"Now?"

"Okay. We just can't run into Dad. He told me not to leave your office."

It's Doug's turn to nod. "Let's go."

He follows her out the main door, down the hall, around a corner an into a narrow passageway. It dead ends at a gated stairwell, locked by a keypad.

"It's oh-one-fifty," she says, pointing at the pad.

Doug punches it in not bothering to wonder how Chell acquired the access code. The door swings forward with a buzz as the lock mechanism releases.

They mount a flight of grated stairs and wind through another corridor lit only by the eerie red glow of emergency lights. None of it exists on any schematic Doug's seen, not even the ones drawn up within the past six weeks.

Suddenly, there's another set of footsteps. Spying an alcove in the hall they've ended out in, Doug drags Chell towards it, hoping the dark will cover them.

Chell's silent, seeming to instinctively understand the danger they're in. Whoever's there with them, even if it's only a janitor, poses a threat.

"I just don't understand," the owner of the footsteps says."she should have fit. We designed it to be adjustable."

Doug realizes it's Henry, and that he's talking about Chell. The panic starts again, burning in his stomach. He doesn't fully know the repercussions for being caught here, but he suspects they're severe and not in the conventional sense of the word. He tries to keep calm, to keep his breathing even, if not for his sake, then Chell's.

"Well, yes, I understand she's small, but that doesn't excuse it. We should have designed it to accommodate a wider range of sizes … Yes, I know we designed it to accommodate those at height extremes for adults, but didn't someone see how that limited us?"

Chell draws back behind him, trying to disappear completely from view. Doug wishes he knew how to comfort her; he settles for trying to protect her from her father instead.

"I think you underestimate the population," Henry continues. "The men and women of Aperture understand that science demands sacrifice, sometimes even great personal sacrifice."

There's a lull; they listen as Henry paces, agitation echoing in his footsteps.

"Well, yes, recruitment has been slow. It's not a fast process; it doesn't mean people don't want to further science, and it doesn't mean they aren't willing to shed a little blood to do so."

Convinced they're about to be discovered, Doug drags Chell deeper into the alcove. Instead, Henry huffs and continue on, leaving the frightened scientist and tiny girl unharmed.

They dare to move again after a few minutes of silence. It's not far away now, just up another flight of stairs and down one last corridor before they dead end in front of a room unique any Doug's ever seen in the facility.

"Here," Chell says, pointing towards the door.

Gingerly, Doug presses against the handle, and finding it unlocked, steps in.

It reeks of antiseptic and cleaning solutions, the former an uncommon smell for the infimary-less facility. There's a mass of wires almost a foot across taped down around most of the room's perimeter with one end leading into the headrest of a chair at the room's center.

It's like Chell described it, a dentist's char with restraints - psychiatric restraints, Doug notes. There's a hole in the headrest covered by a black foam cap emblazoned with the Aperture logo. There are gas tanks too, and more computers than he's use to seeing in a space of this size. Turning around, he nearly sends an IV stand clattering to the ground.

"Spooky," Chell says. Doug nods in agreement, distracted by a blinking screen on one of the computers.

Crossing the room to examine it further, he can't help but notice the odd paraphernalia scattered across the room's surfaces: mouth guards, tongue depressors, gauze, sutures, and syringes.

The message on screen turns out to be a save request for a file type Doug can't recognize, something called GLF. He makes a note to ask Wheat what he's heard, but doesn't disrupt the machine.

"Big lights," Chell points out. "They don't look like the ones in your office at all."

Doug's gaze travels upward, eager to see what's merited such a comment. He realizes almost immediately what's piqued her interest: the room's lighting consists not of long standard fluorescent tubes, but of operating room lights. To say it's incongruous is an understatement.

"Chell," Doug begins, suddenly disturbed as the hair rises on the back of his neck. "I think we should get out of here."

She nods, eyes darting around.

"Come on," he says, ushering her out. "Let's go."

Doug wants to make it clear that he does not run. He wants to make it clear to himself, clear to the voices that occasionally ricochet across his mind, and clear to Chell. He doesn't know what's he's found, but he's fairly certain it's something he wasn't mean to. He needs a clear head, not only for his sake, but Chell's.

Once back in the office, Chell scrambles onto the couch, grey eyes following Doug as he frets, paces, and turns on the lights. She knows something is wrong; she can see it. She can sense it. She's known for a while now, since Dad first started talking bout the Glad-lady, since the stories about the chef started. But now... now she understands it's bigger than she'd thought. This isn't something from the pages of the books she's read, or a scene from the movies she's watched. This is bad, bad the way hospitals and police officers are bad, bad the way the lady from the state banging at the door is bad. This is bad in the way that even the grown ups are afraid of, because this is bad in a way they can't stop.

"What do we do?" She asks.

"I don't know, Chell. But we'll figure it out."

* * *

"Psych restraints?" Evy asks the next morning. "Why psych restraints? Are you sure?"

Doug nods. "They were the real deal. That much I could tell."

Evy sighs, furrowing her brow. "But why? What could they possibly need psych restraints for?"

"I don't want to consider it, Ev."

Rick stalks in, swagger still a distant memory. "What ain't we considering'?"

"Why there's a room around here with psychiatric restraints and surgical lights," Evy says. "Henry brought Chell there last night apparently."

He stops dead, turning to face Evy. "You kiddin' me?"

She shakes her head.

"This world's got a lotta sickos," he groans.

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "You know something?"

He shakes his head. "Forget it, angel. Better if you pretend not to hear it."

Doug stands, looking at his watch. "I'll be back in a while."

Evy nods, half-listening. "Have fun."

He leaves; she stays.

It's a position she's only recently become acquainted with; she'd spent so long afraid of and then irked by Rick that being alone with him still carries a foreignness absent from most of her other interactions. She doesn't know how to start this conversation, or if she even can.

A few years ago, it would have been impossible. Fresh out of grad school, she still lacked the sense to tell a real predator from a run of the mill boor. She'd found ways not to be alone with him, made sure Doug or Wheat or someone was there. It was how she had gotten so close to them; they'd sheltered her when she'd hid.

Eventually, she'd found her footing, come to understand that he was all words and no hands. She'd learned to parry his advances and cut him off before the steam could build. In short, she grew up.

Then, his sister was attacked. Evy can't say she was comforted by the story - a rape occurred - but she'd be lying if she denied that Rick's reaction didn't somehow reassure her that the big, brutish tech wasn't actually a threat. It removed the final remnants of what had so unsettled her initially. While she still wouldn't go so far as to label them a friends these days, she's at least learned how to handle him.

"Rick."

"Angel."

"What do you know about that room?"

"Enough to fill your pretty little head with nightmares."

She sighs again. This is going to take more time than she'd hoped.

"Rick, really, what do you know?"

"I wasn't kiddin'; enough to fill your head with nightmares."

"But why would Henry have brought Chell there?"

"I don't wanna think about that. She's a little girl. He ain't got any business taken' that from her."

The words hang in the air for an instant before Evy even begins to dissect them. She squirms, panic beginning to eat at her stomach.

"Rick, what goes on in that room?"

"Ole Craig could give you a better answer."

"Rick."

It's his turn to sigh. He's rarely at a loss for words, even less often around women. He knows Evy's not some fragile porcelain doll, not some little thing to be protected, and that answering her question shouldn't be all that difficult. But telling the truth means acknowledging what happened and he's not sure he's ready to come to terms with that.

There's a level of invasion he can field; he works at Aperture science, doesn't he? He can deal with being a little prodded and poked. He's learned to filter out living like a rat in a cage under constant observation. At the end of the day, he sheds his lab coat like a second skin and leaves the gloom and unpleasantness of Aperture far behind. He can block out what happened, keep it in the prison of nightmares and dreamscapes. If he tells Evy, if he gives it body in this world, he's not sure he'll be able to force it back where it belongs.

But now there's a kid involved and that means Evy, with all her smothered motherly instincts, isn't about to drop it. And, if Rick is honest, shouldn't drop it.

"Sit your ass down, angel. I don't what Egghead and Dougie getting' all a flutter if you faint."

Evy wrinkles her face in displeasure, but doesn't come back at him. Instead, she perches gingerly on the edge of Doug's desk. "Alright, I'm settled."

Rick lets out a long, slow breath and wishes for a cigarette. He hates this. he hates that he has to tell anyone. He hates that, if he doesn't, the kid's in danger. He hates that he can't smoke in this damn pit in the earth.

"I can't tell you the specifics. That ain't my field. Ole Craig gave me some sorta sick overview as they were strappin' me into that chair, but I was a little preoccupied."

"You didn't fight him?"

"I couldn't move a damn finger, so fightin' was outta the question."

"Oh."

"He said something about contributing to science, and makin' sacrifices. Then there was this big rush of pain and everything went black. I don't remember a rotten thing until they tossed me out onto the catwalks all bloody. Gash the size of Nebraska on my beck. Still ain't healed all the way."

He watches as she rubs at her arm, goosebumps springing up.

"Why the restraints then? I mean, if you couldn't move."

"Didn't last. Soon as they started on whatever they were doin', it wore off fast."

She grimaces, rubbing now at the back of her neck. He can tell she's at a loss for words, not that he can blame her. What the hell is she supposed to say to all of that?

"Just be careful with whatever you're doing, angelface. You don't know what you're meddlin' in."

* * *

At lunch, Evy sits alone at her desk, typing and re-typing a report. Rick's description hasn't left her mind for more than a minute; vague as it was, it's enough to tell her that Chell's in even more trouble than any of them could have realized.

They're also virtually powerless to save her.

She's accustomed to being powerless. Really, she is. She's used to accepting fate; what else is she supposed to do? There's very little she's ever had any sway or control over, and that's the way it always will be. She had no say in college, no say in grad school, no say in a job. And it's fine.

But those were all things that only affected her, and all things she knew and accepted square on because it was better than wasting her life away. Chell's situation is different. She didn't choose this trap, and that's exactly what it is.

"Evy?" Someone asks.

She turns, jolted back to reality.

It's Doug, one of the few who understands how easy it can be to mistake the greater evils for the lesser ones.

"Sorry," he says. "Didn't mean to startle you."

She stands up and shakes her head, motions for him to follow her. He needs to hear this, but she can't tell him with the cameras and the microphones so close by. He follows without question, seeming to understand the discretion required.

They walk without words and ride the nearest elevator up to ground level, step out into the February chill, and make a dash for Evy's car. It's probably the most poorly executed plan she's carried out in some time, but it at least guarantees their privacy.

Doug doesn't need to ask if this errand has a purpose. If Evy's dragged them all the way here, she knows something.

"The room," Evy starts. "Rick couldn't tell me a lot, but apparently Craig gave him a lot of babble about sacrifice as they were strapping him in. He couldn't fight back because he was drugged. He didn't know what they were doing, but it was painful and it was invasive."

Doug frowns. This is bad; not any worse than he suspected, because that's nearly impossible, but still very bad. "So what do we do?"

She shrugs. "I don't know, but we have to do _something_. We can't just leave her alone with that lunatic father."

"We can't exactly do anything about that, Ev. There's no abuse, no neglect. We can't actually report something like this to anyone. No one would believe it. And kidnapping is still a crime."

"Could we pay him off?"

"That's called human trafficking, and it's even more illegal."

"Only if it gets reported."

"Evy."

"What? He wouldn't!"

"Her mother might."

"She's practically an absent parent!"

"There's a pretty large gap between being a distant parent and not noticing your child is gone."

"We can't just … just sit here and let him do as he pleases."

"Ev."

"I mean, yes, legally we have to, but morally, we can't."

"Ev."

"It's wrong. Plain and simple and clear cut. And if something happens to her, it's on our heads. Because we knew. We know. And-"

"Evelyn."

She stops, finally realizing the degree to which she's degraded into pointless rambling.

"We will figure out what to do. I don't know what, but something," Doug says. "We just need time to figure it out."

* * *

On the last Thursday of the month, the GLaDOS team once again files into one of Aperture's cramped conference rooms. One of the monitors is hooked into CCTV footage streaming from the hulking AI's chamber. Two easels stand at the front of the room, both by cloths.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the project director begins. "This has been an incredible month for Aperture and for science. We have pushed the boundaries and found tremendous success on the frontier. Today," he pauses. "Today, I present to you the two latest advances in Aperture AI technology."

With a flourish, he pulls back one cloth, then the other, revealing two poster-sized diagrams of the cores.

"The Fact and Adventure cores!"

The room applauds, though more from a fear of reprisal than a sense of accomplishment, It's a fact that seems to escape the project head.

"Now, to address some administrative business. Volunteer rates are still sub-par. We'll need to reconsider our process. Additionally, Craig has taken an extended leave of absence. His help will be dearly missed as we soldier on, but soldier we will."

From the corner, Evy raises her hand, a gesture quickly corrected by Wheat.

"I want to know why he took that leave," Evy hisses.

"I'll tell you later."

"How do you know?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Wheat, I mean it."

"Ev, I'll tell you later."

"What are you-"

"Ev."

"Yes, Ms. …uh, Miss?" The director asks.

Wheat squeezes her wrist, silently asking for her trust.

"Oh, sorry!" She blushes. "Just a badly timed stretch. A bit tense, you know. From all the excitement," she quickly tacks on.

"No, no, it's quite alright," the direct assures her. "Everyone handles this differently."

To her side, Wheat exhales, relieved. He's lost a good deal; he's not about to lose Evy too, even if she isn't quite his to lose.

"Continuing on," the director begins. "We will celebrate this month's success with another activation test. To success!" He shouts as the sirens begin.

Doug watches the color drain from Evy's face, watches the way her shoulders shudder up and down with every too fast breath. He's been with her through activations before and he's never seen her like this. Then again, they've never been through an activation with such a vivid understanding that deadly neurotoxin is hardly the most horrific thing Aperture keeps at its disposal.

Evy squeezes her eyes shut as the sirens seem to grow louder, dreading what's to come. She hates this; she hates the gas; she hates her own damn vanity. This didn't have to be her life, she thinks as the sirens come to an abrupt stop. She didn't have to follow her parents' follies. In the instant before the gas begins to seep in in yet another failed attempt to control the machine, she grabs Wheat's hand, knotting her fingers through his.

The gas pours down from the vent at an astonishing rate. Around the room, people sink to their knees, coughing. Some scrub at their eyes and noses, ducts and membranes futilely trying to flush the poison out. Wheat feels the now-customary rash break out under the sleeves of his shirt, as those around him begin to writhe and convulse.

_At the rate the kill switch procedure's going,_ he thinks. _They might actually kill us this time._

Still, despite the heady green fog and the now body-wracking cough, he can't miss the feel of Evy shifting towards him, a gesture he finds he doesn't have the motor control to reciprocate.

His vision is dark and blurry by the time the fans kick to life , and almost gone by the time the smoke begins to clear. His mouth tastes like bile and his skin stings; he swears this stuff gets more wretched every time.

Evy's buried herself against his side, fighting to breathe between coughs. _There is nothing subtle about this_ _,_ she realizes, but can't bring herself to care. This is the closest yet they've come to all being killed; as far as she's concerned, they've all got a much larger problem. Besides, if Wheat's arm curled loosely around her waist is any indicator, he doesn't terribly mind.

If she's going to die here, and really, wouldn't that be just the cherry on the her family's Aperture history, she's going to die with him. At least if she gets a say in it.

Across the room, Doug leans his head back against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Once again, he's left to question the wisdom of a job here. He has a Ph.D in computer science; it should at least qualify him for a job teaching high schoolers basic java. It would mean summer vacations, union support, OSHA protection, and a decided lack of neurotoxin: all things he'd never get at Aperture.

He makes a mental note to look into teaching requirements as soon as they have gotten Chell out of danger.

Around him, the coughs are beginning to die down. People are sitting up, standing up, brushing themselves off. No one quite says anything; they all just shift awkwardly, waiting for a talking to or to be dismissed.

_What is there to say?_ Doug thinks. _Sorry that was a spectacular failure again? We'll try not to repeat that?_

He just shakes his head.

From the front of the room, the director dismisses them all with the old drawing board cliche. The crowd thins quickly; though movement may still be difficult, almost everyone's willing to make the effort if it means getting out of the room.

When almost everyone's gone, he gingerly stands up. It's then that he sees them: Wheat and Evy. They're sitting in a corner, Evy leaning into Wheat, eyes closed, looking a deathly shade of pale. Wheat's arm is around her, and from the angle of their heads, he can guess that they're talking.

He bites back a smile; it really isn't funny, and he knows that, but if they can find happiness in this mess, then anything is possible.

Their eyes meet his, and he heads across the room, ready to compare notes.

* * *

Evy's car stalls in the parking lot that night, leaving her to bum a ride from Wheat. She feels terrible for inconveniencing him, but would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy his company.

Leaning back against the headrest, she shoots him a sidelong glance. "What was all that about in the meeting today?"

"I believe that was neurotoxin, Ev. Definitely neurotoxin."

"No, not that. I mean, yes, obviously, that was there, but I meant about Craig."

Wheat swallows hard. "You haven't heard? I guess they did a better job with damage control this time. I guess they had to, with it being one of their own and what not."

"Wait … what happened?"

"Craig's dead, Evy."

"You mean braindead, right?"

Wheat shakes his head, eyes never straying from the road. "Dead dead. Procedure went horribly wrong, mutilated the brainstem. He was gone before they got'im off the chair."

Evy's hand covers her mouth, and for a moment, she thinks she's going to be sick.

"It's been kept quiet, very hush-hush. They dumped the body into one of the incinerators. Made a bloody mess."

She just shakes her head. "God…"

"The worst bit is that they don't even know why it happened. It's a still a sodding mystery."

"So, sounds like if the gas doesn't get us, the company will."

Wheat nods. "If I were you, I'd start looking for a job. Any job. Anywhere."

"You say that like it's a viable solution."

Wheat shrugs. "You might be surprised, Ev. You just might be surprised."


	4. Four

  _"What about the others?"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"There's more to the story than the girl."_

[March 2003]

March settles heavily on them all, long grey clouds spanning the sky. Silently, Evy pines for summer, missing the warmth of the sun on her skin. Despite being a Michigan native, she's never quite accepted the seemingly interminable winters that come with the territory.

As she settles into her desk, readying herself for another day of death-defying science, she reminds herself that summer is coming, that the light will be back soon.

In the gloom, she tries to focus on her work. There are already rumors circulating that, despite the spectacular failure that was the last core test, those in charge want two more by the end of the month. Mercifully, they're after the type ones for the next round. Less detailed, and as such, far less difficult to produce, it's not the workload that bothers Evy so much as the principle of it. Even Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results was insanity; why couldn't any one at Aperture see it?

She thinks of Wheat. It's a comforting thought, even if she's never been more unsure of here she stands with him. The past few weeks have seen her in his arms a good deal, but she can't tell if that's attraction or friendship. Near death experiences tend to cause extraordinary displays of compassion, whether its among friends or more-than-friends. She's not sure where she falls and isn't about to assume anything. Risk-taking has never been her strong point.

And that's sort of what got her into this mess, isn't it? Didn't want the risk of loans, of debt, of chancing it on the job market. Too risky.

She shakes her head, and stands up. She needs some air. Grabbing her coat, she heads for the elevator, laptop tucked under her arm. The doors open and she steps in, her mind far far away.

She steps out when the door opens, not really caring what floor she's on. Continuing down the hall, she stops dead at a group crowded around an office door, all talking in hushed tones, staring at a man slumped over a desk.

It's Jim, another engineer on the GLaDOS project. He's a good guy: nice, warm, upfront. He'd had a daughter a year ago; there are pictures of her pinned all over his workspace. He'd been so happy when she was born.

She moves further into the crowd, looking for anyone who can tell her what's happened. The looks of pain and sadness etched onto their faces are enough to tell her it's as bad as it looks.

She sees Amy, Jim's officemate, face devoid of color. She and Amy are friends; six years straight through University of Michigan's grueling engineering program tends to form strong bonds.

"Amy," she says, drawing near. "What happened? Why's everyone here?"

The other woman swallows hard, shaking her head. The mascara staining her cheeks is enough to tell Evy her suspicions are dead on.

"Jim's dead," she says, voice heavy with tears. "We don't know what happened. We … I … just found him on the desk. " Her voice breaks, and the tears come again. "I thought he was just sleeping. We've all been under so much stress. But I tried and tried to wake him up and I couldn't." Her shoulders heave as she takes a breath, trying to push on with her tale. "I went and got Tammy, and she took his pulse, and the look she gave me - I just knew. We don't know why it happened. He was in such good health! And with the baby…" She pauses, wiping at her face with the heel of her hand. "This couldn't have just been a heart attack, Evy. I know it. Tammy knows it. Everyone knows it. But…" Her words dissolve into sobs.

Instinctively, Evy reaches out to hug her, a gesture met with welcome relief. I's a nice gesture, a human gesture. But the problem is that Evy's not sure whether she's trying to comfort Amy or herself.

She has no proof, but she knows Amy's onto something. She knows Aperture's involved; it's almost painfully obvious. Openly executing employees isn't the company's style, though, especially an employee on the GLaDOS project. All the other deaths involved the transfer technology - reckless negligence, not murder. This doesn't fit the form.

She thinks of Jim's daughter, the tiny babbling girl who will never know her father, and of Jim, who will never be allowed to see the woman his daughter becomes. She thinks of birthdays and holidays and school days, graduations and weddings and family dinners. She thinks of legacies and the way that stupid adage about history's proclivity for repeating itself keeps coming true. She thinks of time missing, lost, and stolen and the incredibly precarious state in which they all live.

She thinks of her family.

And then her own tears come, faster than she expected, complete with rubber band mouth and a flowing nose. It's a deeper wound than she's felt in years, a wound that she can't honestly assign a single cause to because there's far too many to choose from as the cause of this sudden outburst.

Stepping back, Evy sniffles, trying to regain her composure and hoping for a delicate exit from the situation.

"Tammy took blood," Amy begins. "As soon as she finds anything, I let people know."

Evy just nods, refusing to chance another outburst.

"Amy!" Someone calls from behind them.

In the seconds the other woman's back is turned, Evy slips away down the hall, back towards her office, just wanting to be away from the spectacle.

* * *

For an hour, she futilely attempts productivity. She drafts and scraps patent paperwork, files forms for Neil's internship, and briefly scans over the day's testing schedule before accepting that she isn't going to accomplish anything of any real value today.

Still, fearful or looking idle, she gathers her papers and her checkbook and heads to Wheat and Doug's. If she's going to attempt the dreary task of muddling through her finances, she at least wants company.

She keeps trying to focus on mundane things, the same way she's been told to eat bland foods when she has a stomach ache. If she can fill her head with forms and fine print, there won't be any room for the horror of what's happened and what's going to continue to happen. It'll all be drowned out by the minutiae of everyday life.

But nobody's home when she gets to the office and the ensuing worry is enough to flush all those mundane things from her thoughts. She tries to sooth her nerves, quietly noting who both of their desks are in relative order and reminding herself that different teams, even different sections of teams, have different meeting ties. There is not sign that anything is amiss.

And then she remembers that Doug's a medical liability and Wheat's got awful luck, so that doesn't mean a thing. For all she knows, they too are dead on a desk somewhere.

Though she isn't cold, she drapes Wheat's cardigan over her shoulders as she sits down to work.

Twenty minutes later, it's not Doug or Wheat or even Rick who finds her there: it's Chell.

Evy's head snaps up at the sound of the door, expecting big burly men in lab coats syringes and straps. When she realizes it's Chell, the tension drains from her face and the color begins to return.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" She ventures, tone more curious than accusatory.

"Don't feel well," comes Chell's reply. "Dad came for me."

"You're sick?" Evy asks. "Come here a minute, will you?"

Chell obliges and Evy places a hand against the now-shivering girl's forehead.

"You've got a fever, honey. Is you dad taking you home soon?"

Chell shakes her head.

"Did he call your mom?"

Again, no.

"Did he at least give you something for the fever?"

A third no.

"Chell, honey, when was the last time you ate?"

"I had lunch yesterday. Mom didn't come home last night. I don't know where dad was."

Evy lets out a long sigh. "Where's your coat?"

"Dad's office."

"Is he there?"

Another shake of the head.

"Come on. Let's go grab your coat and mine and we'll go get you some food."

Chell looks up at her, surprise reflected in her glassy eyes. "Really?"

Evy nods, standing and gathering her papers. "Yeah."

"No jokes?"

"You're sick! I can't take you home, but I can at least get you some food and some Motrin. That's what adults are supposed to do, you know?"

Chell shrugs. "You and dad are different."

"Your father's an … odd one. I respect him, but-"

"You don't like him."

Evy's silent, not wanting anything she says to get back to Henry. It's not that she thinks Chell would willingly say anything, but funny things become ammunition in arguments and Chell and Henry already don't agree on plenty.

"It's okay," Chell says, seeming to understand her hesitation. "I don't either."

* * *

After a quick pharmacy stop, she and Chell pull into the parking lot of the nearby diner. The sky is a lovely azure blue now, but it brings Evy no comfort.

"Where are Doug and Dr. Wheatley?" Chell asks.

Evy shrugs. "I don't know. Honestly, I'm a little worried."

"The bad things keep happening?"

"And they're getting worse."

* * *

They run into Doug on the elector on the way back in from the diner. Evy fights the urge to press him with questions, instead giving Chell time to say her hellos, however brief they may be. While never vivacious, she's gotten even quieter in the past few weeks. If the bruises Evy spies on Chell's arms are any indication, there's a reason why.

Together, they walk back to Doug's office. Chell settles on the couch and is soon asleep, one hand resting on the errant companion cube turned coffee table.

"Are you alright?" Doug eventually asks.

Evy nods, refusing to meet his gaze. "Just spooked. This isn't good, whatever it is." She looks up in time to see Doug raise an eyebrow. "There are … people," she starts. "Who think this wasn't … an act of nature. If you catch my drift."

The programmer's expression quickly shifts to one of horror. "They think…?"

Evy holds up her hands. "They don't have proof of anything."

"You mean they don't have proof yet."

Evy nods.

Doug shudders. "Have you seen Wheat today?"

"No. Honestly, I was hoping you had."

Doug shakes his head. "His stuff's here. I heard CogSci had a slew of meetings. That might explain it."

"Might."

Doug softens. "He's probably fine, Evy. Someone would have said something."

"You assume someone would know. Or that someone would _want_ to say something."

"He's not Craig."

"Neither was Jim."

* * *

When the email announcing Jim's death circulates later that day, Wheat is still in meetings.

He's sitting across from Craig's now empty spot at the table, quietly sifting through his inbox, trying to stave off the boredom. They were done with the meaningful discussions an hour ago; now it's just Aperture propaganda.

As his eyes scan the screen, his stomach twists. He can understand that they thought the cook was expendable. He can understand that Craig volunteered Rick and that the team took Craig because they saw him as something unique. They're not valid reasons, but it wasn't as if the technology was being used as a means of punishment either. But Jim? One of the project's engineers? That was punishment.

Opening a new message, he considers how best to phrase the question he needs to ask without making his intentions obvious to anyone beyond its intended recipient. This is delicate, maybe even mores than he realizes. He doesn't want to put himself, or anyone else really, in a compromised position.

With Doug's address in the 'send to' field and the text cursor blinking in the message box, his fingers hover over the keys for a minute before typing out the vaguest string of words he can conjure: _You hear the news?_

A few minutes later: _Yes. Talk when you're back. Should email Evy too._

Once again, he clicks over to a message, and keys in an address. This time, however, the composition's not nearly as labored. A simple ' _You alright?'_ poses no threat.

Her response is shooter, more harried. He doesn't need anything more to figure the state she's in. He tells himself that she's a grown woman, one fully capable of handling herself. He can't escape the sense, however, that if such things as breaking points truly exist, then Evy's bloody close to hers.

Closing his laptop, he excuses himself from the meeting, citing a pending conference call. It's a half-truth; he _did_ have a conference call. It's just that it had already happened, and it hadn't so much been a conference call as another phone interview, though no one needs to know that.

On his way back to the office, he stops in to check on Evy, only to find her cubicle empty. Shaking his head, he turns and heads for his own office. As long as she's there, he has nothing to worry about.

_Evy. Bloody hell, Evy._ He thinks. _Evy: the last loose end._ The job's almost settled; they were impressed with his resume and all the interviews have gone well. He doesn't have to worry about visas or permits; he's a bloody dual citizen. He doesn't want to celebrate prematurely, but he's almost certain his days at Aperture are limited.

He always thought he'd walk clean, and honestly, he almost can. He could give Doug that last push to apply at a high school somewhere, call Family Services for Chell and stick around long enough to ensure she got away from that nuttier of a father. He doesn't have family here and not may other close friends. His rent is up to date and he's almost debt-free now. He has no dog, no cat, no fish. It all looks so lovely and neat until he gets to Evy.

She's the snag in all of this, a brilliantly kind and warm roadblock between him and safety. She'd stop him dead on his way out the door and never even know it. The fact is that he's in love with her and he's not about to leave the love of his life in the Tartarus that is Aperture Science - whether she reciprocates those feelings or not. He doesn't want to go without her smile, her voice, her laugh. He'd miss her too much. He'd sooner spend a hundred weeks here with her than a single week in safety alone. He's not sure what that says about him, but on further reflection, he realizes it doesn't matter.

He hopes the tension that flows out of his shoulders at the sight of her hunched over a table in his cardigan isn't overly noticeable.

"It's been quite the day then," he announces, setting his laptop down on the table. "Tell me, when did we start using the core transfer process for punishment? I thought Craig tried that and we saw how that ended."

"Wasn't the technology," Doug says, eyes never venturing from the screen in front of him. "Found him dead at his desk."

"What?" Wheat asks, taken aback. When the email hadn't mentioned anything about where they'd found the poor sod, he'd just assumed it was another catastrophic technology failure. Horrific, but not unheard of. The absence of an obvious cause is disquieting to put it mildly.

Evy's gaze rises to meet Wheat. "Amy found him earlier this morning. She thought he had just fallen asleep. Unfortunately," Evy swallows. "She was wrong."

Before Wheat can begin to decipher the look in her eye, she forces her gaze back down to the pile of checks and receipts in front of her. Wheat can't remember the last time he heard Evy even mention attempting to sort out her finances, let alone when she last followed through on her perpetual resolution. He wants to talk to her, to rub her arm, to look her in the eye and tell her she's safe - even if he can't guarantee that. He wants to tell her that destiny's a load of shite and that she's clever enough to walk out of here tomorrow and still find her way to a respectable job at a nice, normal engineering firm.

Instead, he asks why Chell's asleep on the couch.

In return, he gets a clipped explanation from Evy about parental negligence and fevers and the wonders of Motrin. She never once allows her eyes to venture from the numbers in front of her, never once even humors him with a sidelong glance. She's resolute, determined to keep to herself; a funny thing, really, given that she's taken to sitting in his office.

Well, his and Doug's. Shouldn't forget that.

He knows that it's not anger written into the lines of her body. Evy's always been plenty vocal about her displeasure with other members of the human population, as well as with her car and household appliances. No one would ever accuse Evy of a need to suppress her rage; to watch her carry on was to understand Shakespeare's commentary on hell's fury and scorned women.

No, he's fairly certain it's fear. Evy doesn't talk about her family, but that doesn't mean they don't lurk in the back of her mind. She says she never knew her grandfather, and only has bits and pieces of her mother and father; so perhaps, more accurately, it's their fate that lurks.

He's always wondered how she could choose this life. He understands the barebones of the situation -that it was her ticket to college and then to graduate school, that it was only meant to be for a fixed period of a few years, that she needed the money- but he's not sure he understands how Evy is able to function in the place that's claimed the vast majority of her family, let alone do so calmly, with her usual cheer and a smile. For the first time in the entirety of the time he's known her, he realizes that maybe she isn't as at peace with the whole sordid business as she seems.

Doug excuses himself in a hurry and almost runs out the door; Wheat turns to follow with his eyes, utterly baffled. The energy isn't like Doug. Well, it's not like lucid Doug. He hasn't experienced the other Doug, so he can't authoritatively speak on that front.

He shoots a glance over towards the couch, furtively making sure their guest is still asleep. Satisfied, he turns his attention towards the panicked engineer.

"Ev," he says, squeezing her arm. "Evy, look at me."

She shakes her head.

He tries again.

"I already had my breakdown for today. I've got 1500 miles until my next one."

"That's an oil change, love. Talk to me."

She shakes her head. "We're already fucked. I don't intend to move our names up on the list by having a meltdown."

"Don't say that, Evy. It … it'll be alright. Er, somehow."

Finally, she turns to face him, eyes wet and face drawn. "How did they ever let you do intake for test subjects? You're a terrible liar."

"Something about the accent being soothing."

She offers him a half smile, but there's no trace of amusement of joy behind it. He'd recognize it virtually anywhere; it's the same miserable contraction of muscles he offered Aperture's recruitment agent years ago.

"Please," she starts, blinking back tears. "They're already so terrified by the time they get to the interview, there's no calming any of them down. Do you ever wonder how many we sent to their deaths?"

"Man alive, Ev, don't think like that," he says.

She shakes her head. "I mean it. How many did we rubber stamp? How many could we have saved?"

"Evy, it's voluntary."

She rolls her eyes. "Nominally. I'd remind you that working here is voluntary as well and what choice did we … I … we have."

"Ev … Evy, listen to me," Wheat says, voice hushed. "You can't talk like that, love. Not here. You know that."

Another shake of the head. "Sorry," she mumbles. "You're right. I don't know if it changes anything, but you're right." She drops her head, suddenly fascinated with the weave of her skirt's fabric. She's quick enough to catch most of the tears that slide down, digging the back of her hand into her cheek.

He catches the first rogue with his knuckles, brushing them gently against her cheek. He's surprised when she leans into it, settles down against his fingers. He's even more surprised when her hand settles on top of his; he loops his thumb back to catch hers, holding it there.

Now it's his turn to be terrified because he's not sure what he's actually meant to do. He didn't plan for this, didn't include it in the hundred thousand scenarios he played through in his head. Evy's not fragile, that much he knows, but people hold hands when they're scared. They hold hands when they're upset. Hands are not harbingers of feelings beyond simple affection. He's always been awkward, clumsy, prone to damaging fragile things - and this is as fragile as any glass goblet or stoneware jar.

He doesn't have much time to dwell in his thoughts, however. The usually silent hallway bursts to life with the sounds of footsteps and people chattering - lots of them. He squeezes Evy's thumb, sorry to feel her hold break as she pulls back and attempts to compose herself.

Standing, he gives her hand a final squeeze, earning a smile - a genuine smile - in return. He crosses over to his desk and promptly reboots his laptop, prepared to look busy should the hoard make its way into their little workspace.

This time, they're spared.

* * *

Days pass. Someone starts up a collection for Jim's family; with the company already halfway down the tubes, there's no life insurance coverage and their pay nearly guarantees Jim wouldn't have had it privately. They manage enough for a proper burial and a one night wake, both at a greatly reduced rate.

The Aperture contingent squeezes together at the funeral, suddenly out of their element when placed in the presence of non-Aperture personnel. Jim's family is large and gracious, so obviously pleased to see that he had touched so many lives beyond his own. His wife thanks them all personally, tells them how much the money helped, how she doesn't know what she would have done without it.

Wheat and Evy never wander far from each other. If anyone asks, she just explains that she's forgotten her purse and he's kind enough to share his tissues with her. No one who knows them believes it, but there's a time and a place to call out untruths and the funeral of a father is not one of them.

The ground is frozen too solid for a burial; at the end of the mass, his brothers and an uncle lift the casket onto their shoulders and slide it back into the hearse to be taken back to the funeral home. With April only two weeks away, he should get a proper burial within a month, the funeral director says.

Worked in the ground. Died in the ground. Buried in the ground with a side stop to a freezer. The monotony's near claustrophobic, enough to send even Doug reaching for an extra glass of wine at the restaurant they end up at that night.

When he falls asleep at night, if he falls asleep, the nightmares fill Doug's mind. There's no escape. They've upped his meds; they're given him sleeping pills; none of it helps. Most nights, he just lies awake, staring at the ceiling like the lunatic he's always been afraid he'll become.

* * *

A week after the funeral, ten days after they find Jim dead at his desk, Evy bumps into Amy in the hallway. The dark circles ringing her eyes are two shades too dark to be simple sleep deprivation. Her hair is haphazardly thrown up and her clothes are beginning too hang off a form that's grown too thin. She looks worse than she did in the weeks leading up to finishing her graduate thesis, and Evy was certain she'd never see anything that bad again.

"Evy!" Amy hisses. "Evy, come here!"

Evy's brow wrinkles and eyes dart around, checking for cameras, but she obeys.

Wordlessly, Amy grabs her hand, presses what feels like a square of paper into it, then walks off. Evy brushes a thumb over it, then slips it into the inside pocket of her lab coat. She has no idea what could possibly merit such secrecy; that doesn't mean she's stupid enough to open it in plain view of anyone in the hall.

She makes her way back to Wheat and Doug's office carefully, trying not to arouse any suspicions. She realizes that this, quite possibly, crosses a line into paranoid. She accepts that it puts her a step closer to Doug on one of his bad days. She doesn't care.

Stepping inside, she closes the door behind her and twists the handle to lock it. Except there's no click, no comforting reassurance that they've bought themselves a few precious moments. They're every bit as exposed as they were before.

"It's been gone two weeks, angel," says Rick. "Unless you wanna start barricadin' that door, it ain't locking."

"What?" Evy says, mouth hanging open. "Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?"

"It's been gone since the first of the month," Wheat says, turning from his computer to face her. "Least if you believe the maintenance logs."

"What's all the big hush for anyway, angel? You gotta secret?"

For a minute, Rick considers pushing it further, seeing just how much of a rise he can get out of the girl and the egghead. They're both so thick sometimes, always missing the obvious. There's no color in Evy's face, though, so he decides to save it for another time.

She nods, withdrawing the paper from its hiding spot. "From Amy," she announces.

"What's it say?" Doug asks, turning from his monitor. "Anything about -"

"Shh!" Evy hisses. Unfolding the paper, she smoothes it onto the table. "Read it for yourselves."

Slowly, the others scoot towards the document.

"Bloody hell," Wheat lets out. "Bloody sodding hell." He pushes up his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Bloody … fucking hell."

Three pairs of eyes turn to meet his.

"Wheat," Doug starts. "Anything you'd like to volunteer?"

"It's a paralytic, the same one in the neurotoxin," he sighs, refusing to look at them. "Extremely potent, extremely easy to overdose someone on, extremely fast acting, highly illegal. The only thing that counteracts it is time, so…"

"So if they slip you too much, it's all over," Evy finishes.

Wheat nods. "I know CogMed was pushing the dosage limit. They reckoned that if they could just push it a little further, it'd reduce the risk of catastrophic failure in the transfer process. "

"Would his lungs or his heart have stopped first?"

The three men turn to look at Evy. Doug twists into silent shapes, trying to form a question; Rick's mouth gapes open; only Wheat meets her gaze.

"Lungs."

"He suffocated to death."

"Yes. Most likely."

"How long did it take?"

"Evy, I'm not-"

"Wheat."

"Two minutes tops."

"Alright then," she exhales. Folding the paper back up, she pockets it once more. "I'll make sure I get rid of this."

No one knows what to say when she walks out the door, back straight and composure eerily intact. Instead, they just sit there and stare at one other before awkwardly making their way back to their desks.

* * *

There's a staff meeting the next day. It's nothing unexpected, just a regular run of the mill check in. There's no activation test; there's no absurd demands. Even the Aperture propaganda isn't overwhelming.

The atmosphere is so relaxed that the employees even find time to chat between presenters. There's really only one topic of conversation, though: Jim. If loose lips sink ships, then Amy's as good as cored.

Eventually, the project director turns his attention to Jim's death. Almost immediately, the conversation dies down. Everyone turns to listen.

"As you all know," he begins. "We recently lost our friend … ah … Jim. He passed away as he would have waned to - at his desk - from a major coronary. His tire-"

"Oh, please," Evy starts from somewhere in the background. "Do you really expect us to believe that?"

Doug looks up from his laptop, eyes frantically scanning the room for Evy. He finds Wheat instead, whose face has gone strangely colorless and gaunt. Fuck. Neither of them are close enough to shut her up.

"Ms … uh …"

"Anders. And you'll remember me this time," Evy continues. "How stupid do you really think the people in this room are? Everyone on CogMed knows what happened. They know damn well that it wasn't a coronary. And, at this point, so does most everyone else here." Her tone is remarkably cool, detached. Doug wonders if this is what it's like to watch someone have a break with reality because there's simply no way the Evy he knows would ever do something so stupid.

"Ms. Anders-"

"Please," she rolls her eyes. "I mean it. Cambridge, Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, U Mich … Masters, even. No one in this room is stupid; we all have the pieces of paper and the critical reasoning skills to prove it. Even without that, though," she pauses, to let out a mirthless laugh.

"Ms. Anders." The project head's voice grows louder, obviously angry.

"It's pretty easy to see that a body injected with a potent paralytic derived from everyone's favorite toxic gas didn't just drop dead of a natural coronary. In fact," she pauses, looking up at the project head. "It wasn't even a coronary. He suffocated to death when the relevant were no longer able to move. So, please, if you're going to treat us all as lab rats, have the decency to be upfront about it," she drawls.

This, Wheat knows, will be his hell. His fingers scrape against the cloth of his pants, trying vainly to keep the cold sweat from completely soaking his hands. He wants to yell, to tell her to shut up because this isn't going to change. He wants to drag her out of the room, out of the building, far far away. He squirms and tries not to look, tries to make sure he can't even accidentally catch her eye. He can't grab her wrist, can't plead with her to please stop this, can't do anything but sit there and watch.

Which, when it comes down to it, makes him no different from anyone else in the room. No one moves, no one grimaces or nervously smiles or even dares to breathe too loudly. Everyone's gaze is fixed on Evy, waiting to see what else she'll say, what the director will say. It's more like watching a reactor core meltdown than a train wreck; everyone knows the consequences will be far far worse.

"Are you finished, Ms. Anders?" The project head asks, his voice icy.

"For the moment."

"Good. Everyone else, out. I need a word with our Ms. Anders."

* * *

Wheat paces. Wheat paces because he can't think, can't work, and there is nothing he can do about it. Evy's a grown up. She made her choice and she has every right to do that and he has no right to stop her. She's got a brain and a voice and a fully functioning frontal and prefrontal cortex. She doesn't need a babysitter, doesn't need someone to censor her.

But it's forty minutes later, she's still not back and this is Aperture Science. And he's in love with her and he just let her go off and seal her own … her own … No. No, he's not going to put it in those terms because he is not even going to entertain the idea that she's dead. He's overreacting. She's going to come through that door any moment, haggard and annoyed, but intact.

Sure enough, the door swings open.

It's not Evy.

Neil looks scared. There's no other way around it. He looks like a little boy who's just woken up from a bad dream, but hasn't quite assured himself that the monster's not lurking beyond the next corner. Wheat's not sure if he's heard the story, but he's not going to broach the topic.

"Have you see Evy?" Neil asks, out of breath. "Everyone else came out from the meeting, but she didn't, and with what happened to that other engineer-"

Wheat's eyes widen. "You haven't seen her either?"

Neil shakes his head.

_Fuck_ , Wheat thinks as he heads for his laptop. _Bloody sodding fucking fuck._ His fingers tap out a frantic rhythm on the keyboard, logging in and beginning the not-so-arduous process of breaking into the CogMed files. Really, he would have thought that as the most closely guarded section of the GLaDOS team, there would be better security - not that he's complaining. Pulling up the command line, he resorts the files to pull up the most recent; he doesn't have time to cover his tracks as well as he'd like to, but there's a more pressing concern.

His eyes make it halfway down the document before he finds Evy's name. She's listed as a successful transfer completed a matter of minutes ago.

Behind him, Neil squeaks. "What do we do?"

"What do we do about what?" Doug asks, walking through the still open door. "Where's Evy?"

"Cored," Wheat says, cold crashing the computer. "Can you still find your way up to that room, mate?"

Doug stares at him for an instant before nodding. "Yeah," he says, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I think so."

"What should I do?" Neil squeaks.

"Go get the first aid kit out of her desk," Wheat says, halfway to the door.

"Then what?"

"Stay here, keep out of sight, and shut the door," Doug says, following Wheat. "We'll be back."

Doug leads, trying to appear nonchalant as he scuttles through eerily empty halls. They may not be housed in the most populous area in Aperture, but it's certainly anomalous to see the halls this deserted in the middle of the afternoon. Even the other offices and cubicles are weirdly devoid of occupants; the entire floor can't possibly be on testing duty.

Silently, Wheat tries bargaining with the universe. It's absurd. He had any belief he had in some greater justice beaten out of him long ago; there is no saving force, no great equalizer. He knows this. He feels in the bones and fibers of his being and yet here he is offering anything he can think of in exchange for Evy's being as alright as can possibly be expected. He has no family to offer up, no friends who won't, at this rate, eventually befall the same fate. He has no home, no wealth, nothing.

So, he offers himself. _Come on, you bloody git, take me. Take me, not her and we'll be even. I don't even give a damn. But please, don't take her. Don't take Evy. Don't make it some dreadful cautionary tale about the inevitability of fate. Don't do it. Don't you bloody dare._

The corridors are dark; there's not even a light on in the room housing the transfer equipment. Wheat reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pen light, shining it in front as they make their way through the shadows.

Wheat hears her before her sees the trail of blood, the sound of muffled heavy breathing ricocheting off the walls. He keeps the light low, not wanting to accidentally shine it in her eyes if she's sitting someplace strange.

She's sitting half-collapsed in a corner across from the double doors of the transfer room, settled in shadow. The blood is there, as he guessed it would be, but it's not just on the floor. No, it's on her hands, and in her hair. It takes him a minute to realize that she's shaking; he hopes its nerves and not blood loss.

She looks up when she sees them, eyes squinting against the light. She tries to stand, but can't find her footing, leaving her to cower against the corner.

Wheat turns off the life and closes the distance between them in a matter of steps, kneeling down in front of her on the cold metal floor, cupping her face in his hands. "Ev, Evy, look at me, love." In response, he can feel her lean into his touch, and gingerly try to shake her head.

Wheat sighs."Do you know your name?"

"Evelyn Margeline Anders. Born May 21, 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan."

"Do you know my name?"

"James Wheatley."

"D'you know what day it is?"

"Wednesday," she breathes, voice barely audible.

"The date?"

"March 19, 2003."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Aperture fucking Science."

"Do you know how you got here?"

"I have a big mouth. And a bad filter. And the director's a dick."

Wheat lets out a small sad laugh.

"How bad d'you think the damage is?" She asks. "Don't mollycoddle me. I'd rather know upfront."

"If there's any, it's not bad, Ev," he says, quietly. "You may have walked clean." Against the skin of his palms, he can feel the faintest hint of her smile.

"I can't walk," she starts. "And I'm kinda bloody. So, I'm not sure what you're gonna do with me."

* * *

This is how she ends up in his arms. It's not how he ever imagined it would happen and it's certainly not how he'd have ever wanted it to happen. Still, there he is, carrying Evy while Doug leads the way through the darkness. Her arms are wrapped tight around his shoulders and her forehead is warm against his neck. He feels her panic on the stairs, her whole body tensing up and only beginning to relax once they've reached flat ground once again.

It's not that she's heavy, but he's grateful that the office isn't that far. They're met in the hall by Neil and Rick, the latter of whom has thought to drag out a wheeled office chair. He's mercifully, blessedly quiet.

"Is she alright?" Neil whispers.

Doug nods. "Far as Wheat can tell."

"I can hear you both, you know," Evy groans from the makeshift wheelchair. "I'm not deaf."

Wheat just smiles and shakes his head. _Alright, universe, you kept your part of the deal. I won't go back on mine; do your worst._

* * *

With Neil's help, he's able to clean most of the blood off while Rick keeps watch and Doug erases the tracks he'd left earlier. Twenty minutes later, she's cleaner, but still in pain and in no position to be at work. Neil dashes back to her office to grab her coat and gloves. Rick manages to hold her up while they shrug her into everything. Then it's back onto the chair and into the elevator, until Wheat carries her out to the car.

They make quite the spectacle.

Fifteen miles outside Aperture, Evy's hands pat at her pockets. "Are you kidding?" She groans.

"What? What happened?" Wheat asks, panicked.

"Keys. My keys, more specifically. They're in my desk. Fuck."

"You want to go get them?"

"No…No, I'll … I dunno. I'll figure something out."

"You're, er, you're welcome to stay with me. If you want, that is. I've got a fold out sofa. It's nice, really."

"Really?" Evy asks. "You don't mind?"

Wheat shakes his head. "It's no trouble. Just … what are you planning to do about clothes?"

"Well, there's always my grandmother."

* * *

He carries her up once they get to his apartment, setting her on the couch and handing her the phone while he goes to make tea. From the kitchen, he hears bits and pieces of the conversation she has. It's a lot of reassuring, a lot of guaranteeing. He's surprised there's no insistence that she comes home this instant, but he realizes that even Evy's grandmother must realize that at almost thirty-two she's a bit old for that.

"She'll be here in half an hour," Evy says, turning around to face him. "Thanks again for, well, everything. I owe you."

Wheat just shakes his head. "Don't be ridiculous."

Carefully, she begins to wiggle free from her layers. First, it's the coat and gloves. Then comes her sweater and socks. They're all folded quite neatly on the floor at her feet; with everything she's been through today, he'd like to congratulate her on that.

"Er," Wheat begins, unsure of how to broach the subject. "You're still pretty weak on your feet. How're you going to, you know…" he asks, color beginning to creep into his cheeks.

"Um," says Evy, cheeks also beginning to color. " I, uh, hadn't considered that. Fair….fair question."

Wheat chews at his lip for a moment, thinking. "You could … you could just sit in the tub. Without the water on, I mean, pull the curtain and take the rest off. "

"That's … that's a good idea," she nods, movements still tentative. "Probably a very solid plan. I wasn't going to shower standing up anyway."

"You, er, need help there, Ev?"

She looks down at her legs then back up at him. "Yeah, that's … that's a safe bet."

* * *

To his credit, the idea works and they're both spared any awkwardness.

However, any calm he may have managed to gather having overcome that obstacle is quickly obliterated by the appearance of Evy's grandmother.

She's not an unpleasant woman, really; Wheat can tell that much. She obviously loves her granddaughter, obviously cares for her. It's just that, suddenly, Wheat has a very keen understanding of where Evy's frankly terrifying inability to sugarcoat comes from.

The situation may be exacerbated by the fact that his shirt is still streaked with blood.

* * *

That night, he orders a pizza and they sit on the pulled out couch watching terrible movies on a television set that he's had since he moved to the States. It's a bit fuzzy, but given that they're watching the worst of the worst - _Plan 9 From Outer Space_ \- Wheat's not sure that the fuzziness isn't an improvement.

Eventually the movie ends and the pizza is finished. They sit in the near darkness, the eleven o'clock news blearily droning on in the background. Evy's head is on his shoulder and his arm's worked its way around her waist.

Sitting there, Wheat can't help but let out a small chuckle. Today was not a funny day, not by any means. It was an exhausting, miserable, terrifying day, one that should be going into his history book as one of the worst he's lived through. Part of him may never get over the feeling of knowing she'd been cored, of not knowing whether or not the person he was going to find was even going to be the Evy he knew and loved.

Unconsciously, he pulls her closer to him. She just nuzzles further into his neck.

Love. _Huh,_ he thinks. _Should probably get around to telling her at some point. Work life being what it is and all. Best not to chance it._

"Er, Ev," he starts. "Look this may not be the time, but after today, I'm not going to take any more chances."

"Mmm?" She mumbles, picking her head up to look at him. "What's the matter?"

"Ah. Well, this is…"

"Wheat."

"I'm in love with you. I thought I should probably tell you at some point. You know, before we're all filled to the brimming with deadly neurotoxin. And I'm sorry if I've just buggered this, but … I … stupidly, selfishly wanted you to know."

And finally, _finally_ , he makes good on that mistake from the holiday party long long ago. And finally, _finally_ , even if it's only for a brief, shining moment, he's not alone.

"Wheat," Evy says, breaking the kiss. "You should know something too."

"What?" He asks, his heart sinking.

"I love you too."

* * *

She spends the night not on the couch, but in his bed, curled in his arms, rolling over to press kisses to the scruff under his chin.

It's the best sick week she's ever had.


	5. Five

"You had to have known the end was near."

"There were hints."

"But?"

"We liked our scraps of hope too much to listen."

* * *

[April 2003]

Wheat's in the kitchen, eggs cooking over not quite easy, when he feels Evy pad up behind him. Even standing on her toes, she's not tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder, though it never stops her from trying. He wraps an arm behind him, catching her around the hips, thumb brushing against her skin.

"Good morning," she mumbles into his back.

"Thought you were opposed to that phrase. I remember a very, ah, interesting diatribe on the subject."

Through the thin cotton of his tee shirt, he can tell the smile fighting its way out. "Well, James," she drawls. "I had to complete somehow with your lecture on the pointlessness of Machiavelli."

He laughs, turning off the stove and turning to face her. She's still lovely, even in the half-awake haze of early mornings; he doesn't think it ought to be possible, but it hardly changes the facts.

"Good morning, love," he says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

"Mmmph," she grumbles, settling against his chest. "Still a silly phrase."

"Of all the absurdity in our day-to-day existence, you pick on 'good morning.'"

"Mornings are overrated." She pauses. "Well, not everything about mornings."

"First cup of tea."

"Sunlight."

"Quiet."

"Distinct lack of quiet," Evy quips, smirking up at him.

"Why, Ev," Wheat starts, feigning innocence. "I wasn't aware you so fancied the sounds of traffic and noisy neighbors."

"Mmm, you know me."

"Which is why the tea in the kettle is herbal."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

It's been three days since Doug slept. He has been home to eat and shower, certainly, and he's made sure to take his medicine, of course. The voices have started to pipe up once more; they drive him down Aperture's hidden corridors, down dimly lit hallways, and across catwalks suspended above cavernous depths. They remind him of his failures, his shortcomings; they hiss that this plan, too, will fail and they'll all be worm food after all.

He's seen the core cobbled together from Evy's handiwork and mind. It's small and yellow, bright and curious and naive: an altogether appalling attempt at recreating the real person. Still, in the ensuing test, it gained them a few more picoseconds and he can't help but feel some twisted sense of pride in his friend, forced as her contribution was.

He wishes the office weren't so empty. The shadows creeping up the walls, tearing their way in from the vents, and threatening to swallow him whole are rather poor conversationalists - not that he really expects any thing else from the malignancies of his mind. Still , hallucinations who wanted to chat would be a nice change of pace.

He hears his friends before he sees them and, for a moment, thinks he's gotten his wish. It's only when they come through the door -in the flesh - with Neil trailing behind them that Doug truly realizes it's Wheat and Evy standing before him. He simultaneously wants to hug them and shove them back out the door, up the interminable stairs, and out of the building. The former impulse is altogether foreign; the latter is all too familiar.

Evy doesn't look right. Sure, her eyes track and her speech is fine and she carries on conversations. But she's gaunter and paler and somehow less whole for what she's been through. Doug can't help but think that if he viewed her from the side, she'd more closely resemble a single leaf of paper than a real person. He knows, of course, that it's a patently ridiculous notion, and that Evy is still very much a solid person, and that while he can't take the lack of any noticeable impairment as proof that she's fine, it's probably not a harbinger of doom either.

Besides, if the lipstick on Wheat's collar is any indication, the week's developments have been far more positive than Doug would have imagined.

"Doug," Wheat starts, pulling him aside. "Ah, mate. Er. Dunno how to say this, but you're, uh, not looking so good."

"I'm fine," Doug responds. "I've just been more … productive than usual. Worried about Evy."

"She's fine, save for a few migraines, and those we had checked out. When was the last time you were home?"

"Checked out?" Doug asks, perhaps a bit too loudly.

"He means they stuck me in an MRI machine with a hefty dose of Benadryl," Evy says, shrugging off her coat.

"And?" Neil pipes in. "You're … you're okay?"

"Everything's fine," she says, offering her intern a small grin.

Doug can't help but notice some of the tension settle out from Wheat's shoulders at the sight of it.

"So," she begins, settling on top of the cube. "What'd we miss?"

"The order came through for another two cores," Neil starts. "We finished the first one for … for …"

"For your imprint, such that it is," Doug offers.

"Yeah. And the other one's almost done. And another order came in for another, but the other model type."

"Three?" Evy intones. "Mine and two others? Already?"

"Rumor has it they already have one imprint ready," says Neil. "But it hasn't been confirmed."

"Jesus," Evy groans.

"You missed an activation test, though!"

"It's more like you were spared," Doug corrects. "Your core's been heralded as another breakthrough, though, by the way."

It's only then that Evy looks him in the eye. She furrows her brow for a moment and sucks in her bottom lip. Doug knows that face and he knows what's coming. He also knows that neither she nor Wheat will keep settling for flimsy excuses and sidestepped answers. Yet, despite all that, despite the years he has known Evy that should have taught him to cut her off before she begins, despite the fact that he can hear the words before they've fully formed on her lips, he's not quick enough to head off his friend's inevitable outburst of "What the hell happened to you? Have you slept? Have you…"

He just nods his head. Sins of omission are far more easily forgiven than anyone likes to admit.

* * *

Neil thinks Aperture might be starting to eat at him. Sure, it's always been a funny place to work but the company _did_ have old NASA ties, and it seemed like his best shot at getting in without having to become a test pilot or wait around for a Ph.D. Besides, it was the only paid internship he could find.

He doesn't want anyone to misunderstand; he's still as dedicated to his dream as ever. The night sky still fills him with an unparalleled wonder, and distant stars still remind him that they are so young, so small, and that there is still so much more to know. The sentiment's cliche, he's sure, but it's the purest and truest thing he's ever known.

No, his dedication to his dream hasn't wavered, but her's almost certain Aperture was a misstep on the path to pursuing it.

It's not that there aren't bright people from whom he's learned so much. No, not that. And it's not that there aren't tremendous opportunities because, for goodness sake, his name is on the patent application for the core piston, right next to Evy's.

No, it's none of those things. It's just the creeping realization that everyone at Aperture is disposable.

He suspects he's been coming to it slowly, with talk of the cook and Craig and Rick and the other man whose name he can't remember, but whose death had so badly rattled everyone. He suspects it would have happened even without the Evy-getting-turned-into-a-core incident last month. He suspects that it is a conclusion most of Aperture's employees eventually reach, but that does not mean it does not chill him to the bone, sending a shudder through his whole body, when it really truly hits him.

And, of course, it hits him as he's staring at the scar on the back of Evy's neck. _Really classy_ , he scolds himself. _Is this what your manners have become?_

Still, on one of his breaks, he can't help but look into alternative internship placements.

* * *

She has learned that she doesn't like to be alone.

Evy knows that she's lucky that that particular development is the worst of it. She knows that, given the imperfections of the process, she could be dead or, worse, vegetative. She is lucky to have walked away with clean MRI scans and no impairments beyond a few headaches. She is lucky that she has someone to take care of her when the odd nightmare hits. She is here and she is whole.

She also cannot stand to be alone within Aperture's halls.

Aperture has never felt safe, largely because Aperture has never _been_ safe. She has no idea of what the actual death count might be, but suspects that, after sixty years of history, it must be conservatively in the mid-hundreds - not counting test subjects, of course. It's H.H. Holmes' Murder Castle made corporate. There is no safety and there is no hope within the facility's walls; these are the facts of Aperture employment.

It's easier when she's surrounded by people: Wheat and Doug and Neil and Rick and the chaos of a room when they're all there. It's harder to disappear when there are people looking at you. They won't snatch you when there are witnesses, and there's no way to snatch you all at once. They can't sweep everyone's body in to the incinerator and they can't expunge everyone's records in one fell swoop. Management may lack subtlety, but they don't like to be _that_ blatant either.

There is no safety in being alone. Being alone is the equivalent of being asked to be dragged off to some dark room, to be subjected to experiments like some kind of animal, to be made to disappear. It's not hard to make a single body disappear. If there's no one there, there's no one to look for you. If there's no one there, there's no one to save you or mourn for you or even remember that you were there in the first place. Fire burns away an awful lot of evidence. The cavernous pit the facility is sunken into swallows secrets terribly well. The official record is easily expunged.

These are the thoughts that turn over in her head as she sits in her empty office, at the end of her empty hallway, hands shaking as she adjusts a gear on the second of the three cores. She's grateful to Neil that he's taken the other core, _her_ core, as his own project. She understands that it is a machine, a shell and nothing more, and that she has built many many machines in her time and that there is nothing special about that particular machine.

Except that there is. It is the in-the-flesh reminder of an assault that is far too intimate, and far too close for her to be able to remove herself. Her scar is a reminder that she is a survivor; the core is a reminder that she was a victim. It is violation without vindication, wrongdoing without hope of rectification. She can tamp down the rage, keep out the crying and the snotting all over, remember to keep some semblance of her composure; she can do it all, as long as that stupid core isn't staring with it's stupid dead eye at her, as long as there are people around and the mechanical whir of cameras and clanging of pneumatic tubes aren't the only sounds in the air, as long as she tells herself that one day, she will be free and she will not be alone and doesn't give into the idea that they are all doomed and will die painful deaths all alone because this is Aperture.

She dreams of dropping cores into gaping holes. She knows the consequences too well to ever truly consider it.

* * *

The first few days back are quiet. Wheat keeps an eye on Evy and Doug and manages to make it through his meetings with a minimal amount of eyebrow raising commentary. He makes passable tea and avoids observation duty and does not run into Henry or any of Aperture's other nutters and, for a brief moment, allows himself to think that the worst might be over.

He goes home at night with Evy. Dinner is made and eaten. The news is watched. They talk and do laundry and take showers and go to bed. Sometimes they make fun of the people on the television in the morning; other times, they just curse at the lies of beautiful weather that the weatherman keeps spewing. If he steps outside of Aperture, of the constant lingering menace, he is happy. HIs life, despite his innumerable fuck-ups, is more or less together. Evy is whole and alive and bright and more than just around.

It softens the blow when, a week after their return, the noxious green smog begins billowing from vents across the facility, drowning them all in a haze of toxin. Doug, in some frantic bout of dragging and pulling and yanking at panels, manages to herd them all onto the catwalks, sparing them the coughing and choking affair, but forcing them to watch as other cubicles, tiny boxes not dissimilar from their own, filled with the malignant gas. He knots his fingers through Evy's and tries not to remember the feeling of watching the life squeezed out of you, the way the coughs tear at your throat or the way your eyes water over.

He forces himself not to think about the way people start clutching at their stomachs after the latest test, the way you can't go for a few feet in the halls without the sounds of people retching. He ignores the stories about people coming back with abnormal blood tests after routine doctor's visits, about blood in mucus, about the way people are beginning to lose their sense of smell from repeated exposure. He considers investing in gas masks, and hopes for news on the job in England.

 _It will be fine_ , he tells himself. _Just survive a little longer._

Except he is rudely reminded that survive a little longer is a lot harder than it necessarily should be when Evy shows up at the door of the office, sheet white and breathing deeply. When she can't get out a full sentence so Doug goes to check her office. When he comes back, harried even by his usually standards, and tells Wheat they need to go because Neil's desk has been upended, the computer screen is flickering on his search history, and they really need to find him.

Wheat wishes this route wasn't becoming so bloody familiar, that he didn't have to know the nooks and crannies and places to look for people who have collapsed. After Evy, he's cautiously optimistic that they'll find Neil intact: bloodied and traumatized, certainly, but intact.

And he's mostly right. Neil can't talk at first, but he can respond. His eyes track and he turns towards noise and nods and shakes his head. He can read and write legibly and knows all the basic facts he should. By the time they get him back to the office, where Evy's still drifting around like a specter and Rick has already dragged out the medical kit, he can even get out long paragraphs in the tiny notebook Doug carries.

He still doesn't talk and that's worrisome, so they stick him in a car off to Wheat's friend at the MRI clinic.

Everything's fine. He's just screamed the sound out of himself.

He watches Evy spend the ret of the day drifting like a ghost, ashen and pale. She rights Neil's dark chair, gathers the pencils scattered across the floor, repines the downed printouts of nebulae. He watches as she cold crashes his computer and methodically removes the hard drive, slipping it artfully into her computer bag.

Doug doesn't talk the rest of the day. He just pores over his notebook, tracing and retracing routes through some labyrinth Wheat can't see. He gets up to mutter or pace or stare suspiciously at the vents. Wheat's not sure if the medication's stopped working, or Doug's just aware of something the rest of them have all been blissfully spared. He decides, after a moment, that he doesn't want to know after all.

Evy grips his hand tight the whole way out of the building, like she's expecting something to reach out and grab them. It dawns on him that it's probably exactly what she's expecting and, once again, finds himself wondering whether it's folly or foresight. Aperture always _did_ like its grabby mechanical bits.

She types furiously at her laptop while he makes dinner, chewing on her lip the entire time. He'll find out the next morning, when she drags a battered Neil out of the office, up the elevator, and back to his car that she's crafted his ticket out: a detailed report to his college and a glowing recommendation letter. She'll tell him to get out and not to worry, to leave Aperture to her, that he's smart and dedicated and that he'll make it. He'll wrap her up in the tightest hug he can muster and drive off, letters sealed on the front seat next to him.

She'll find Wheat -or maybe, he'll find her- in the dark that night, in the rustle of sheets, the biting of lips, and the groping of hands.

Sometimes, the reality of flesh keeps nightmares at bay.

* * *

Chell bursts into the office one night mid-April, dirty and disheveled and with blood leaking from he lip. She throws herself behind a startled Doug as Henry stalks in. Instinctively, Doug scoops her up, knowing full well Henry won't physically fight him for the girl. She buries her head against his shoulder, refusing to meet the other man's gaze.

A deluge of words and angry noises spew forth from Henry's mouth, his cheeks red and spittle occasionally taking flight. Soon, his hands and arms join in on the act, twisting and contorting into some gross pantomime of normal human reactions. Silently, Doug takes to rubbing slow, soft circles on Chell's back, the way he remembers his mother doing when he was sick. She's all tension, nerves and sinew bundled together by fear; he's just grateful the blood's dripping from her lip and not her neck.

Henry stands there sputtering for a moment before Doug realizes he's meant to respond. Gently, he hitches Chell up higher, never loosening his grasp.

"You obviously don't want her. I do."

"What?" Henry sputters. "You … you can't be _serious_! She's my _daughter_!"

"No," Doug spits back. "She's your _contribution to science_ because you're too much of a _coward_ to go _contribute_ yourself."

"You-" Henry growls.

"You don't leave a _daughter_ bloody and bruised. You don't drop her off in the middle of a _death trap_ when she's already sick. You don't stick a _daughter_ into a contraption that has a _body count,_ Henry. Please, by all means, tell me about how she's your daughter, your _pride_ and _joy_ , and how you'd do _just anything_ for her and how she just _won't listen_."

Chell picks up her head, surprise in her eyes. Doug is surprised too - surprised that after all these years, he's still capable of vitriol; surprised that he's just gone off at Henry, the one person who could very likely get him cored; surprised that he doesn't particularly care. He suspects the biggest surprise, though, is that he's just seemingly volunteered himself as a parent. HIm. _Douglas Rattman_. Crazy Doug. Doug the Schizophrenic. Doug who Evy fusses over. Doug who sometimes forgets to make dinner and breakfast and lunch. Doug who has no idea how parenting works.

And yet here he is. Here they are. And the words are out of his mouth and there's no going back and, strangely, it's the only impulsive decision he's trusted in years.

"My wife-"

"Isn't in the picture."

"You aren't-"

"Neither are you."

"But-"

"Henry," Doug begins, eerily calm. "I don't think you really understand the magnitude here, so, let me explain: you agree, or I call the police. And," he pauses, hitching Chell up again. "I'm sure they'd be very interested in what she has to say."

"You wouldn't."

Doug reaches for his desk phone's handset, resting it on his other shoulder while dialing the out of network code.

"Alright! Fine! Just … stop!"

Doug sets the phone down. " I want paperwork. Tomorrow."

"Why? Why does she matter to you? What value does she have?"

"She's a _person_ , Henry. _People_ have value. She's bright, and resolute, and quick-thinking, and even if she weren't, it wouldn't matter. She's a person, not a lab rat. I want paperwork."

"Fine," Henry spits. "Take her."

Doug watches him stalk back down the hall, waiting until he hears the bing of the elevator before daring to talk.

"So. Uh," he begins, suddenly devoid of words. "Hi," he says, setting Chell down, and kneeling in front of her.

"Did you mean it?" She asks.

"What part?"

"Whole thing."

Doug nods. "If you want. I mean. I guess Evy -"

Chell throws her arms around him before he can finish the sentence. Doug isn't sure what to make of it at first - it doesn't immediately register as a hug. Still, after a moment, it hits him, and he wraps his arms around her in turn.

"i guess this means I have to go buy food," he muses.

Quietly, Chell giggles.

* * *

Halfway to the car, he flips open his phone and dials Wheat, knowing he'll get Evy in the bargain.

Instead, it's Evy who answers.

"Are you two actually living out of each other's pockets?" Doug asks when she picks up the phone.

"I mean, he wouldn't fit in my pockets … and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fit in his," Evy quips. "What's up?"

"I … uh … I have a kid."

" _What!_ "

In the background, he can hear Wheat's reaction to his girlfriend's outburst.

" _What do you mean you have a kid!_ " Evy shouts.

Wheat seems to echo that sentiment in the background.

" _I left you two hours ago and you didn't have a kid! Did you have a long lost one night stand? Was Aperture just handing them out? Did you kidnap someone?_ "

He thinks he hears Wheat assure Evy that kidnapping is not the likely answer.

"Uh …sort of," Doug answers. "Not to the one night stand thing. More to the handing them out - kidnapping thing."

Evy is silent on the other end.

"I have Chell. More specifically. Who I … sort of kidnapped from Henry. With threats."

"Oh," she says, suddenly calmer. "Jesus, Doug. The way you started it, I was expecting something a little different."

"The 'I threatened Henry' thing doesn't get even a little yelling?"

"You're not at much risk from that, mate," Wheat says, suddenly on the line. "Biochemically atypical."

"Where did _you_ come from?"

"Speakerphone," they say in unison.

"And to think, it took you two this long to manage this," Doug shakes his head. "I need a favor."

"Mhmm?" Evy responds.

"Can you two … uh … I don't know what to do. I have to get her cleaned up, but she needs clothes to get cleaned up into."

"Cleaned up?" Wheat asks. "What happened?"

"Henry busted her lip. It's not split, but there's blood."

Evy lets out a pained _oooh_ on the other end.

Wheat sighs. "Bring'er here. We'll get her cleaned up."

"What do I get for now? Clothes-wise?"

"Pajamas and underwear," Evy answers. "Anything more substantial's going to have to wait until a regular mall's open and that won't be until tomorrow."

"Also, food," Wheat adds. "She's going to want that in the long-term."

Chell giggles, this time more audibly.

"Alright," Doug says. "We're leaving now. See you soon."

* * *

"So," Evy starts. "Doug and Chell."

"Matter'a time," Wheat says. "Least she's in better hands."

"True," she pauses. "I was really worried he was gonna go with the one night stand response."

" _Really,_ Ev?"

She makes it ten seconds before bursting into laughter.

* * *

Really, Chell isn't sure what to make of the night. Or of life, at the moment. She's safe for the first time she can remember and that on it's own is sort of strange. Not bad, but strange.

Wheat - who is now just Wheat because it seems funny to keep calling him _Dr. Wheatley_ even though he's a grown up- gets the bleeding to stop and hands her ice for the swelling. And Evy makes her macaroni and cheese. And then there's ice cream for dessert. And there's a warm shower with soap that smells good and shampoo and when she comes out, there's warm pajamas because Doug -or maybe he's Dad now- got back at some point and someone threw them in the washer and the dryer.

But when she gets out, her old clothes and her coat are in the dryer, but not quite dry, so they stay a while longer. And maybe, she curls up on the couch. And maybe, someone covers her with a blanket. Andy maybe, she dares to sleep, to dream.

When she wakes, she's in Doug's - Dad's - arms, bundled in her coat, halfway out to the car.

In the car, on the way … well, the way home, she guesses, she musters the courage to ask what she's been wondering all night.

"Am I allowed to call you Dad?"

It takes Doug a minute to respond and, for a second, she thinks that's it. She's messed it up. She's going to go back and this can't possibly last because she is worthless after all.

And then Doug nods. And it's okay.

And she goes back to sleep.

* * *

The paperwork is on Doug's desk by noon the next day.

* * *

Once again, things settle into an eerie sort of calm. The danger of Aperture slips beneath the surface.

Doug learns to live with Chell. He learns to help with math homework and make sure she's reading what she's supposed to instead of just what she wants to, and reminds her that just because she thinks social studies is boring doesn't mean she can ignore it. He empties the tiny spare room and paints it, buys a bed and a real mattress and a rack to hang her clothes on, and hangs curtains on the window. Evy takes her shopping after work and brings her home with brightly colored clothes and a small pile of books.

Wheat takes to some shopping of his own. Evy's propensity for leaving her rings unguarded on the nightstand while sleeping til the slightly less ungodly hours of the morning means that he has a certain degree of unfettered access to her ring size. He's already well-acquainted with her taste.

Finding the actual ring is a lot harder than he'd been expecting.

For a collective minute, they allow themselves to consider the idea that, by and large, the worst is over, that until the final activation -whenever that may be- they are safe.

And then the sirens come for a test because, as the email states, "Following our massive successes with the Curiosity and Anger cores, we are eager to test out the new Space core in the chassis."

For the first time in ages, they are all really truly good and separated. Wheat's in a meeting on the fifth floor. She has no idea where Doug is. Rick's on a personal day - she'd like to contemplate what it means that she counts him in her mental roll call, but is too quickly overcome by the gas. She stays as high as she can, perched on top of her desk. The gas is heavy and she hopes that maybe, just maybe, she can delay the onset of symptoms, keep it out of her lungs for just a few milliseconds longer.

Except it doesn't quite work. The whole world goes black and she's left coughing, gasping for air she's not quite sure she'll ever get. Ever when the air clears and she see, even when she can sit again, she's still gasping away, her whole body wracked with the cough.

It's only when she pulls her hand away that she notices the taste of blood in her mouth, and the darkening red liquid on the back of her palm.

 _Fuck_ , she thinks. _Fucking fuckity fuck._

Doug finds her before she can stop coughing, notices the blood on her hands before she can say anything.

"You need to go to a hospital," he says.

She shakes her head, reaching for pen and paper. _Hospitals are for sick people._

"You're coughing blood."

_It's not TB._

"It's not normal. The fact that you're still coughing isn't normal, either."

She's too busy gasping for air to respond properly.

"Okay, come on," he says, grabbing her coat and draping it over her shoulders. "Let's go."

She grabs the pen and paper again. _Wheat?_ She scrawls.

"He's okay; still in a meeting. We'll call him from the car."

_Chell?_

"It's 11. She's in school til 3:30."

Finally, she nods, slips her coat on, and allows herself to be led out of the building.

* * *

Evy's admitted before Doug finally pulls out his phone. Wheat's phone rings and rings, but try as he might, Doug can't get an answer. He leaves a voice message, and sends him a text that simply reads 'call me.'

Forty minutes later, when his phone buzzes to life, he almost jumps out of his chair.

"Wheat?" Doug asks. "Please tell me it's you."

"It's me. I'm in the car, so I can talk. Where're you and Evy?"

Doug takes a deep breath. He hates having to break bad news. He really hates having to break bad news to Wheat.

"Hospital. Evy's coughing blood. I mean, she might not be now, but she was."

Wheat's silent on the other end.

"She's okay, otherwise," he tries to reassure his friend. "Cognitively, I mean. She was alert and cogent and was arguing with me before we left."

"Verbally?"

"Pen and paper."

Wheat's quiet again. "How bad are they saying it is?"

Doug shrugs, realizing belatedly that gestures don't actually transmit on the telephone. "Haven't heard - don't think they'll tell me. She's been in there over an hour, though."

Wheat sighs. "They've called a full team meeting-"

"Go," Doug interjects. "It's not going to help if you catch their attention too. If I hear anything or if she gets out, I'll call you. Or, I guess she will."

"Alright, thanks, mate."

"Talk to you soon."

* * *

Wheat heads back into the building in a stupor.

 _Coughing blood_. _She's coughing blood_.

He tells himself that she's being seen to by medical professionals, medical professionals who are unaffiliated with Aperture Science and who won't be tempted to treat her like some kind of experimental case study. He reminds himself that it is her best bet and that, at least in a hospital, she's effectively safe.

But hospitals are not inconsequential places and if she's been in there this long, it is not an inconsequential problem and it is therefore not an inconsequential problem with her lungs and those are not an inconsequential organ to be suffering some sort of malady.

 _We had a deal, Universe_.

These are the thoughts that loop through his head for the better part of the meeting. He worries his thumb against his knuckle and tries to keep the nausea at bay. He wants to walk out, get in the car, and drive to the hospital - even if it's only to pace and eat terrible cafeteria food. He's used to her presence; first, at work and now, in the broader scope of life. He's better for her - and he'd rather be with her than here.

And it's in the processing of getting up to pursue that end that he tunes back into the director. And it's in that moment that the director is talking about final refinements of the transfer process, and a need for more volunteers.

And it's in that moment Wheat snaps.

"Are you bloody kidding me?" He asks.

"Dr. Wheatley," the director starts, annoyed. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"I mean it. Are you bloody kidding me? Haven't you lot learned? The human consciousness isn't a computer program you can just copy and paste willy nilly. People are complex. They're messy. And you'll never understand them by just ripping out whatever you think you can get at. They're not accessories and they're not meant to be dissected. They're not some sacrifices to a folly god that's been fed for far too bloody long."

"Dr. Wheatley, I'm not sure I -or anyone else- follow."

Wheat huffs. "Allow me to elaborate. I'm talking about Neil and Rick. I'm talking about Evy. I'm talking about Craig, casually tossed into some incinerator, and the cook, who's down there with Caroline, another flipping vegetable. I'm talking about _Caroline_ , who was by all accounts quite lovely, and this monstrosity you … _we_ … Aperture spawned from her. I'm talking about everyone in this facility who's learning what the long term effects of gaseous neurotoxin are and everyone who's bearing a long white scar down the backs of their necks. Does that make it clearer?"

"Dr. Wheatley, sit down. Everyone else out."

Wheat knows what he's done, and he knows what's likely about to happen. He doesn't feel the needle puncture his arm as Henry pats him on the way out. He doesn't feel it til he can't move, can barely breathe, and is being dragged along some different dark corridor up to the room and on to the chair. He doesn't feel the straps and doesn't feel the device puncture.

So when the paralytic begins to wear off, and he can feel all of that, and can feel the pain, he's glad he can scream.

His thoughts are a blur of sound and color, friends lost and days he's forgotten he'd lived. It's a demonstration of the power of the human brain and, really, he'd be fascinated were he not so keenly aware of how extraordinarily dangerous and perversely wrong the cause of the spectacle ought to be characterized.

Evy's lips -soft, bright red- ghost across his and his body snaps to attention, jerking against the restraints.

No, they cannot have this. They're taken so much already - he can't even estimate the total human cost, but he's all too aware of the localized toll. He will never -for as long as he treads this earth with what constitutes a sound mind- forget the sight of Evy in the stairwell. He will never forget the sheer and abject terror staring back at him and he will never forget the millisecond of waiting to make sure she was still the Evy he knew, the Evy he loved.

And he swears that, somehow, that resolution, that defiance, just feeds the machine. Suddenly, it's Evy everywhere: every smile she's ever shot his way, every bad joke he's told her, and every cup of alarmingly good tea she's ever made him.

 _No, no. Stop. Come on, you useless git! no. you can't even keep this godforsaken company away from memories of her - and we all saw how actually trying to protect her went_.

He's dragged from his thoughts once again; the machine's intensity redoubled.

It's more than just simple memories now. It's the squeeze of her thighs around his hips in the shower, breath ragged and wet against his chest. It's the sting of short, utilitarian fingernails against his forearm. It's her hair threaded through his fingers while she arches up against him. It's the hickey on his inner thigh, the fleeting feeling of tongue and teeth on tender skin.

And there's rage. A boiling, feasting rage in the bones and sinews of his form. He's' failed at everything he's ever tried. He's a miserable excuse for a man, too bound up in fear of consequence to have ever taken a stand for anything. Certainly, he's lashed out. Certainly, he's voiced grievances. But when he's ever had a chance to act, to try to change things, he's always come up short. Life pushes and he falls over himself to acquiesce, to let things slide because it was the option that involved minimal effort and minimal risk. He's a sad, pathetic man, and he doesn't need Aperture or his father to tell him as much.

* * *

When they finally let him go, he staggers to a spot not far from where they found Evy, and lets the darkness take him.

* * *

A little before two, Evy makes her way to where Doug is sitting in the waiting room.

"What's the verdict?" He asks. "How are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks. Basically, it's toxin-related damage. Spending an extended period time away from it should help," she shrugs. "I don't know how realistic that is. Thanks for taking me, by the way," she adds. "The doctors were … fairly adamant that not coming would have been stupid."

Doug nods. "Any time. How much mothering do I owe you for, after all?"

She grins. "You heard from Wheat?"

"Not in a while; he said there was a full team meeting."

Evy groans. "Great."

"I'm gonna go grocery shopping, then grab Chell. You want me to drop you off back at your … Wheat … your's and Wheat's place on the way?"

She nods. "Thanks."

* * *

A little after eight, Doug's phone rings.

"Hey, it's me," Evy starts. "Have you heard from Wheat?"

"He's not home?"

"No," Evy says and Doug can feel his blood run cold.

"Have you tried calling him?"

"And it's going straight to voicemail."

"Evy-"

"Doug, you don't think-"

"I'll meet you at Aperture."

He turns to face Chell.

"Did the bad things happen again?" She asks, eyes wide.

Doug nods. "Stay here; leave the lights on and put the tv on; don't open the door for anyone. I'm going to lock the door behind me, and I'll have my phone. I'll be back soon."

The girl nods, eyes serious. "Good luck, dad."

He wraps her in a tight hug before grabbing his coat.

* * *

Doug's car is already in the parking lot when Evy pulls in.

Deep down, she already knows what's happened. It's not like Wheat to have his phone off or dead. It's not like him not to come home. She's just hoping he follows the recent trend and that, when they find him, crimped somewhere up in that dark corridor, he's still him.

The halls of Aperture are dead silent when they step out from the elevator. There are the usual errant noises, and a shadow here or there that doesn't look quite natural, but the facility appears otherwise deserted. She feels the hair prickle on the back of her neck and she wishes she had some sort of defense training; she has no idea on just whom she would use it, but can't help but feel it would somehow set her more at ease.

She mounts the staircase first, flashlight low, Doug at her back. If anything or anyone jumps out at them, at least they'll see it, she reasons.

 _Alternatively, if Wheat's up here, you'll find him_.

Doug spots him first, a quiet and entirely uncustomary profanity escaping his mouth at the sight of the lanky Brit.

Evy's eyes follow and she dashes to where he's collapsed.

"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead," she mutters, feeling for a pulse. "Come on, Wheat. Come on. Don't do this to me. Wake up."

She pauses for a minute, silent. "Alright," she starts. "You've got a pulse. That's something. Come on, come on, you can do it. Come on, wake up. Come back to me. Please?" She asks, her voice cracking. "Come on. Please don't do this to me. Please? Please be there."

Still nothing.

Doug's heart sinks.

"Nope. Nope nope nope," she says, sniffling. "This isn't how this plays, Wheat. You know that. I know that. We had a deal. We've had a deal for a damn long time. I am never ever going to forgive you if you renege on me now, because that's not fair. " She wraps her fingers around his. "So, stop being as ass and wake up."

Lightly, she feels his fingers squeeze hers. He lets out a low groan and slowly opens his eyes, squinting in the light. His glasses, half hanging by an ear piece clatter to the ground as she shifts his weight to a more proper sitting position.

He reaches a hand out, brushing a thumb against her cheek. "Deal's a deal, Ev. I'm here as long as you are."

She takes a minute to compose herself, fighting back ready to run tears. "Good," she says. "Let's go home."

She and Doug manage to haul him to his feet and down the stairs.

"What'd you do?" Doug asks in the elevator. "Or is this just … you know…"

"No, no, I did something." Wheat admits. "I aired my grievances."

Evy groans. "It's like we're the same person sometimes, you know that?"

Wheat attempts a grin. "You're prettier. What happened with you today, anyway?"

"Toxin-related damage. You know, the inevitable."

"Nice to see you're taking in stride," Doug quips.

Evy shrugs as they approach the door. "You know me, takes a lot to both-" She stops, mid-sentence. "Door's locked."

"What?" Doug asks. "It can't be."

"You try it."

Doug shoves at the door. It won't budge.

"Does anyone else hear the vent generators?" Wheat asks. "Because either I'm hallucinating or we're about to be in for a very unpleasant event."

Evy shoves at the door again, and then once more. Doug's mind flickers to Chell and what she'll do if he dies here, where she'll go. Wheat just tries to remain vertical through the pain. Finally, on the third attempt, with gas beginning to waft in, the door bangs open and they stagger into the night.

"That … was far too close for comfort," she gasps, as they walk towards the cars. "Far too close."

"We'll talk about it in the morning," Doug says. "In the meantime, are you okay getting home?"

Evy nods. "Yeah, we'll be fine. Go take care of Chell."

Wheat half-collapses into the car and Evy shuts the door behind him. "You're sure you can handle this?" Doug asks.

She nods. "Somehow. Thanks again. I owe you."

Doug shrugs. "Don't worry about it. Night, Evy."

"Night, Doug."

All night, Doug's mind never once leaves from the locked door, never once leaves from the what-ifs and whys it raised.

He falls into a fitful and dreamless sleep, tossing and turning til morning.


End file.
